Must Have Been The Moonlight

by Melody Thomas

  Michael continued to watch her over steepled fingers.

  Even now, his presence consumed her. The novelty of passion, the intensity of her emotions, had proven to be an intoxicating paradox for her. She craved their physical intimacy, yet, she also needed the simple comfort of camaraderie that could last into the daylight hours. She needed to be in control of her emotions again.

  “What we do in bed is very nice. More than nice. I like it a lot. But I want a chance to…” She wanted to know that she was important in other areas of his life. “I want what we have in bed out of bed as well.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “I want more.”

  “Meaning…?”

  “I’m asking that we go through the process of getting to know each other. Perhaps start from the beginning. The real beginning.”

  “Then what? You’ll tell me if I pass your test?”

  “This isn’t a test.”

  She sat across from him as if the heat and intensity in his eyes didn’t burn her to an ember. She was illogical to the point of contrary.

  Yet, sometime during the last few weeks, Michael had ceased to question what kind of woman he’d married. He knew what kind warmed his bed at night.

  The kind that could sit between his knees and make him come with her mouth. An enchanting houri girl with eyes like heaven and laughter like moonlight that halted any thought remotely wholesome in or out of her presence.

  For on an entirely higher level, he and Brianna were like two lions circling one another, equally matched in fight and spirit. There was passion beneath her pride.

  Passion that had touched him when she’d stood up to the authorities and cleared him of murder, no matter the cost to her future. Passion when she’d looked into his eyes with the fortitude to speak her vows for the sake of a child they might have made. Willing to take a chance on an uncertain future ahead of them. He wanted that woman beneath the fervor of her emotions that fueled the heart of her. Who could face down brigands in the desert—including him.

  Who was unafraid to confront anything or anyone—except herself.

  Which left him precariously balanced on new ground, aware that she’d twisted him into a pretzel without knowing how she’d managed it.

  Instinctively, Michael knew if he did not grant her request, she would never ask anything else from him again.

  “Do you play chess?” he finally asked.

  Brianna blinked, unable to comprehend why he would ask her that.

  “Maybe you’d care to wager for your position?”

  She clearly didn’t trust the challenge in his eyes, but she wasn’t going to back away. “I wouldn’t wish to humiliate you, your Grace.”

  “I’m glad to know that we are still of a like mind on something.”

  She was beautiful, her hair lying in waves across her shoulders. She gazed at him with the realization that they shared a like mind on many aspects of daily life and behavior. None of that had really changed.

  “What is it that you are playing for?” she asked.

  Picking two pieces off the board, Michael leaned an elbow on the table and held out his closed hands. “You. In my life. No annulment. One week, I’ll court you.”

  Her shining gaze rose to his. “Four.”

  “One. And I can still touch you anywhere.”

  “Two weeks.” Her voice was sounding oddly breathy. “We live in separate quarters.”

  “One,” he said. “Separate quarters only when we reach England and only for the allotted time. But the rooms have to connect.”

  “Did you really let Colonel Baker win at chess?”

  He arched a brow. “You’ll have to play me to find out.”

  Tension coiled between them. Brianna tapped his left hand. He turned his palm over. She’d picked her own color. No matter what anyone said, she would always think it better to go first.

  “Have you played chess long?” Michael asked conversationally.

  “Since I was ten. Ryan taught me.” She opened the game by moving a pawn. “Then I promptly beat him, and afterward he wouldn’t play me anymore.”

  “Ryan is?” Michael rebutted her move with a like move.

  “The youngest of my brothers. And you?”

  He followed her next move with his bishop. “Chess and whist are the pastime of naval officers. I come from a family of admirals.”

  She arched a brow. “Yet, you went into the army.” She seemed to study him with that thought in mind. Then she lowered her gaze. For a long time she merely stared at the pieces before moving her bishop. “Would you have married me if you weren’t returning to England?”

  Michael moved his queen, and hesitated.

  It took her a moment to register the action. He’d put her in checkmate. Just that fast. Queen, bishop, three.

  They faced each other across the small table. She was waiting for an answer to her question. An answer that he didn’t know how to give, except the truth for what it was. Brianna would never believe anything less. His inheritance had changed everything.

  But Brianna had changed even that.

  “Never mind.” She folded her hands. “I know the answer to that question. We would have waited the three weeks or however long it took for my menses. Eventually you would have returned to the desert, and I would have met someone else. On some other continent, of course.”

  She was wrong on so many accounts that he didn’t know where to begin. “There is one truth you should know, amîri.” He rose. She came to her feet as he walked around the table. “I let you oversleep that morning your brother came to my quarters. I knew that after that night I couldn’t leave you in Cairo. There was no nobility in that need. No honor in my actions. My intent was simply to keep you.” His voice was oddly chilled compared to the heat inside. “So look at me closely, Brianna.” He slid his palm around her nape. “And tell me again that I would allow you to take another man in my place while I yet walk this earth.”

  At first she just returned his stare. Then he saw the radiance in her eyes. “Do you know when I first thought of you in less than wholesome terms?”

  They were suddenly in each other’s arms dancing to the quiet music. No one else was on the floor.

  “When?” His voice was whisper soft.

  “When I saw you undressed, shaving for the first time by the pond. When we were in Baharia. Everything about you was a shock to me,” she added with a careful smile. “It’s the only way I can explain my insane attraction to you, and everything that I did afterward.” She turned her face away and blinked back moisture. “Do you know when I realized how beautiful you are? Truly beautiful?”

  Michael brushed the hair off her face. “When?” He spoke quietly in deference to her tender admission.

  “Last night.”

  He absorbed the simplicity of her declaration, unable to take his eyes from hers. She was deeply familiar in ways that left him searching his own heart for the depth of his feelings. He realized that it had been too long since he’d let anyone into this part of his life as completely as he’d allowed her. As a man who was accustomed to giving orders and having authority, he found the vulnerability unpleasant, his demons alive.

  She pulled him down to her lips and in the softest of whispers said, “Maybe some deeds committed are worth the consequences after all.”

  He pulled away to look into her eyes, and all the light in the room settled in that brilliant blue gaze.

  “How did you beat me in three moves?” she asked.

  Moving one hand to her waist, he teased her bottom lip, if only to hide the tilt of his mouth. He’d beaten her because, as dark as the night, he’d cheated.

  Chapter 15

  Not yet dawn, the sky was still flecked with a smattering of stars as Brianna pulled Alex and Gracie through the throng of passengers to squeeze into a place at the rail. People frowned at her alacrity, but she didn’t care. The decks on the Northern Star were crowded with those gathered to disembark. Brianna felt the planks vibrate beneath her feet. The engine
s churned the water, as the huge wheel seemed to reverse in power.

  They were home.

  The last time Brianna had seen these shores, she’d been leaving her life. Now she was returning a duchess. Nothing had gone as she’d planned, yet every incident had been a step toward this very moment in time. If any event had not occurred as it had, if she’d never met Stephan, she would never have met Michael.

  As she watched the sky turn amber, her heart raced in anticipation. “Do you see them, my lady?”

  Alex was dressed in a white fur cloak. Her breath hung in the frosty January air. “The docks are too crowded.” The hood of her cloak framed her face as she searched the shore. “I can’t tell.”

  Christopher had wired Ryan and Johnny before their departure. Surely, her family would be here to take Alex home. Surely, old feuds had been forgiven in the wake of Christopher’s absence for the past four years. She would never forgive her family if they snubbed Alex.

  Never!

  “Wait.” Alex stood on her toes. “Yes,” she whispered. “They’re here. I see them, Brea! At the end of the docks standing near that carriage.” Her hand went to her mouth and she laughed. “They came.”

  Suddenly Brianna couldn’t bear to waste a moment of this new day. Looking around her, she searched for Michael. When she returned to the cabin, she found her luggage already moved. She pressed through the crowded corridor as she hurried along the length of the ship toward where her mare was berthed, and stopped at the rail to search the lower deck.

  Two men were preparing to move her horse. Michael stood to the side, overseeing the proceedings. He wore black trousers and a burgundy silk paisley waistcoat, his sun-bronzed strength tamed beneath a heavy overcoat. A hand rested on his hip. She’d seen him brushing out the suit of clothes that morning. Now, as her gaze went over the tall unmistakable length of him, she marveled at the change, his ability to transform so easily. His dark hair curled at his nape and blended with the coat he wore over his jacket.

  The engines quit rumbling and, in the abrupt silence, the steamer drifted into the dock. As Michael turned to look toward the shore, Brianna’s hand paused at the rail.

  How did one feel returning home after so long? Except for the one time in Cairo, Michael never talked about his family. It was impossible to think that they could not love him or would not be waiting to see him. Almost as if sensing her, he turned his head and saw her standing on the upper deck.

  He slid his hands into his pockets. His sleeves rode up to his wrists. There was something in the way his gaze could grab onto hers and pull. He knew it, too, and smiled.

  Brianna smiled back. Yes, indeed, she decided. It was a fine thing that today would begin their courtship.

  “Ryan and Johnny are here,” she said when Michael met her at the bottom of the stairs.

  “And Lady Alexandra was worried no one would show.”

  Standing on the bottom step, Brianna could easily see into his face. “My family is hardly that vindictive.” She absently brushed at her skirts, restraining her hands from wandering beneath his coat. “Temperamental and rowdy, yes, but after today I can strike vindictive off my list of familial faults. Will you be here much longer?”

  A shout behind him drew Michael around. Her mare was about to be removed from the stall. “Will she be all right?” Brianna asked.

  “I need to arrange for her dispatch to Aldbury Park.”

  “Lord Ravenspur.” A ship’s officer approached, a thick fellow with a red beard and Scot’s accent. He was winded. “The captain, he will see you now. He is apologetic that he missed you earlier, your Grace.”

  “I had a slight mishap the other night,” Michael said, answering the question in her eyes.

  “Nearly got hisself washed overboard, when the door latch stuck,” the officer said. “Wouldn’t do no good if we lost ourselves a duke.”

  Michael’s gaze when he met the officer’s was less conciliatory than in his words to her. “Go join your family, Brianna.”

  “I’ll go with you, Michael.”

  He smiled down at her worried expression. “I’m a big boy, amîri.” His hand went to button up his jacket. “I’ll find you later.”

  “Jaysus, Brea.” Ryan sat back in his chair. His riding boots squeaked as he laid one ankle across his knee. “Do you think you might have let me buy you out of the company before you’d wed?”

  Breakfast platters sat on the elaborate sideboard against the wall. They had arrived at the inn over an hour ago. “Even if I’d wanted to exercise that option, it was hardly possible,” Brianna said, passing the butter to Johnny, on her left.

  Ryan leaned forward. “Did Chris finally put his foot down and make someone do the honorable deed by ye, Brea?”

  Buttering a biscuit, she looked up to see the young serving girl blushing over her brother as she poured him coffee, and practically rolled her eyes. “It’s just like you to be crass, Ryan.”

  The most uncompromising of her brothers and the sibling most responsible for seeing her sent off to Egypt, Ryan had confined his dark hair in a queue. Women gawked at him. Brianna didn’t understand the attraction. In her opinion, his only redeeming quality, other than the fact that he was one of the top civil engineers in the world, was his affection for his little girl. He’d lost his wife a year ago, and now Mary Elizabeth was everything in his life.

  Johnny turned to Brianna. “He’s been like this since he received word of your marriage.” His voice lowered. “He has no trust for the aristocracy. No offense, my lady,” he said to Alex. His mouth crooked boyishly. “But then I never took offense with ye.”

  Alex returned Johnny’s grin with warmth. “Thank you. And Ryan,” she added, taking them both into her all too innocent gaze. “I’ve never doubted your heart-felt generosity either. Not for a moment.”

  Ryan folded his arms as he observed Alex with a spark of humor. “It is difficult not to feel generous when one is threatened with castr—When one is warned to behave.” He grinned. “Still, it would be nice if we departed Southampton knowing that we’re leaving our precious sister in the hands of a man she won’t be apologizing for at family gatherings.”

  “Major Fallon was involved in trying to shut down the opium and slave trade in Egypt.” Alex stirred sugar into her tea. “I warrant she won’t be apologizing to anyone for his grace.”

  Ryan sipped his coffee, considering Brianna with an amused smile resting lightly on his lips. “So how did the two of you meet?”

  “They met in the desert,” Alex said.

  “Actually…” Brianna smiled in good cheer. “Lady Alexandra smashed him over the head with the butt of her rifle. Then he tried to kill me. It was quite romantic, really. Love at first sight.”

  Ryan sat forward. “Then you’re in love with him, and he with you. I’m relieved to know that it was not the butt of Chris’s fist that convinced him to make an honest woman of ye, Brea.”

  He’d said the words in brotherly jest, but inadvertently or not, Ryan had touched her most tender spot. Perhaps if he had not nailed down events with such precision, the banter would not have hurt.

  “He was the one who brought you both out of the desert,” Johnny said. “The story made the papers here. Chris wasn’t specific with details in his letters. Except that Lord Ware contacted him recently.”

  “Lord Ware heads the Foreign Service.” Brianna turned to Alex. “Why would your father contact Christopher?”

  “There is a theory that the attacks that were occurring in Egypt are connected to the trafficking of antiquities in London,” Johnny explained when Alex didn’t answer. “It’s big business and big news.”

  “Maybe you should talk to your husband, Brea,” Alex said.

  “Maybe we should just finish breakfast,” Ryan suggested, and the topic at the table quietly slipped into news from home.

  A fire crackled in the marble hearth. Brianna didn’t know what had happened to Michael. She left the dining room to check the hotel registrar, and discovere
d that their luggage had been delivered to the room an hour before. Gracie had not seen him.

  The Westgate Inn proved to be a palatial three-story brick mansion with a colonnaded entrance and surrounding veranda that overlooked a garden. She was thankful now that Ryan had secured the private dining room. Her brother’s gaze gentled considerably on her when she returned. “We packed all of Mam’s porcelain and lace,” he said as the breakfast dishes were cleared away. “Christopher told us to make sure your dowry was ready to be delivered when you were ready.”

  Brianna looked between her brothers. She didn’t want her family to feel sorry for her. They were thinking that she’d married some boorish oaf who’d wed her only because Christopher had beat him to a pulp. To show disappointment in Michael’s absence would be a further criticism to him. Instead, she smiled her thanks. “I’ll send for everything when I’m settled. Are you in London?”

  “We’ve moved most of our operations north to Carlisle—” Ryan’s gaze suddenly went to a point over her shoulder. Brianna’s heart began to pound. “He’s here, Brea,” Ryan said, and she turned in her chair.

  Michael stood in the doorway.

  Tall and dark, in that silent dangerous way that gave people cause to notice him, he was handing his coat to the host before his gaze found hers. The clouds shifted and sunlight spilled into the room from the window behind him. It was all so perfectly melodramatic and timely that Brianna knew a sudden lightness of being.

  “I apologize for my tardiness,” he said to everyone, but most specifically to her. “But I had a mare to dispatch to Aldbury.” Then introductions were made and Michael shook hands with Ryan and Johnny.

  Fit to his clothes, Michael looked every inch a peer. And if Brianna had been worried that her husband couldn’t take care of himself with her family, he quickly proved himself charming and self-assured, his arm resting across the back of her chair, one ankle on his knee as he casually conversed as if he weren’t two hours late.