by Louise Allen
‘Ross!’
‘Meg?’ The hands that gripped her shoulders relaxed until they were just supporting her. ‘God, have I hurt you? What are you doing here?’
‘I’m all right. I brought your watch back, I was just going to slip it inside, but you were having a dreadful nightmare, Ross. I tried to wake you.’
He closed his eyes for a moment, then let her go and rolled over to strike a light for the branch of candles by his bed. ‘I can just catch the tail of it still in my head,’ he said grimly. ‘The usual one about blood and death. I am sorry you had to hear that.’
‘It sounded so real,’ she murmured. ‘But then you mentioned Giles and your mother.’
‘I killed them, too, one way or another. And then I spent years perfecting being a killer. And now—that is what I am, what I am worth.’
‘No!’ She knelt up, grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him. ‘No. I saw you on that beach. I know what you were planning—you would have sent me away, safe, and stayed to face all of them. You could have been badly hurt and yet you would have fought for me. A killer doesn’t think like that.’
‘I was enjoying myself, up to the point I knew you were there,’ he confessed, as though admitting a crime.
‘Of course you were,’ Meg retorted. ‘Any man of courage would have done. It doesn’t make you evil or worthless—it makes you brave and worthy.’ His eyes were still bleak. ‘You had a tragic accident when you were a boy, you were thoughtless and heedless like all young men—but you cannot punish yourself for that for the rest of your life. Were you a good officer?’
‘Yes!’ He drew back, affronted. She almost smiled.
‘A worthless killer doesn’t make a good officer. I’ve seen the difference, don’t forget, every day for years, following the army. Ross, the fact it affects you so only proves that you aren’t steeped in evil, that you aren’t in the grip of some bloodlust. They will fade, those memories, the dreams will go in time. You didn’t dream on the ship or you would have woken me.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ He stared at her, the bleakness fading. ‘Perhaps you are my cure.’
Perhaps I might be part of the medicine, Meg thought, watching his face, seeing the nightmare drain away. This was the real Ross Brandon, here in front of her, not the dark, brooding man who had come back to a home he rejected and a duty he loathed. This was the man who had comforted her, even though she had thrown his father’s memory in his face; this was the man who was prepared to show her his vulnerability as well as his strength. And she wanted him with every fibre of her being. Years of being prudent, sensible, seemed to melt away and she was Meg the dreamer again, Meg who believed in fairy stories.
How had she ever thought him cold and brutal? There was so much warmth in those dark eyes now, so much gentleness in those big hands. So much potential for happiness.
And there was beauty in those sculpted muscles, in the sheer physicality of the man in front of her. It was time she understood all the joys of lovemaking, a voice inside told her. She leaned forwards and kissed him on the mouth, her lips telling him without words that she needed him.
He re sponded gently, silently answering, his kiss full of doubt. ‘Meg,’ he said when he pulled back from her, ‘I thought you must be afraid of me. I have given you reason. I want you, but I thought I was too big, too ugly, too much of a brute for you.’ He gestured away her protest. ‘I thought you could not stay with me for myself, not as my lover, so I had to offer something else, suggest a business proposition as my mistress.’ He shook his head. ‘I have not been thinking very clearly about anyone but myself, these past few weeks.’
‘With reason. I understand. Make love to me, Ross.’ He went very still. The candlelight was golden on the plane of his chest and he seemed to have stopped breathing. ‘Not as your mistress, just as the two of us, here, tonight. I don’t know about tomorrow, I can’t think about that.’
He shook his head as though he did not believe her. ‘I am wrong for you. I should never have asked you to be my mistress. You deserve a handsome young man, not a battle-scarred, ghost-haunted—’
‘If you say killer again I will slap you,’ Meg threatened. ‘I do not want a handsome boy.’ She laid her palms flat on his chest and felt his shuddering intake of breath, breathed in the scent of hot, aroused man and the salt still on his skin. ‘I know all about self-centred handsome young men. I want a real man. Tonight I want you.’ And I love you. I love you.
Ross sat quite still as she slid her hands down his chest towards his waist, her fingers ruffling the dark hair as it narrowed towards his navel. The twisted sheet covered his loins and she let her hand drift further, holding his eyes with hers as she moulded her hand round the hard heat beneath the linen.
‘You have such faith in my self-control,’ he murmured. ‘Just don’t… Ah! Don’t move your hand.’
‘No?’ she queried, experimenting with a teasing stroke.
‘No,’ he growled, moving faster than such a big man should be able to. Meg found herself on her back, her robe and nightgown stripped away and Ross kneeling over her. ‘Meg, I do not think I can manage subtlety here, or any self-control. Not now, I want you too much. If you are going to change your mind, say so now.’
‘Do you remember telling me on the ship that if you wanted me flat on my back under you, that it would happen?’ He paused, his eyes hot on her. ‘Well, I have thought about that—often. That is what I want, Ross and I do not want to wait either.’
In response he simply threw the sheet aside and knelt between her legs, nudging them apart to give himself room. Oh, my God. Naked and erect he was as magnificent as she had dreamed he would be.
‘Tell me if I hurt you.’ Meg closed her eyes for a moment as his weight spread down over her. His erection pressed into the flesh of her belly, branding it, wrenching a gasp from her lips. Then he took some of his weight on one elbow as his hand slid down, teasing into the slick heat between her sea-cold thighs. ‘You are ready for me.’ It was not a question, she was utterly aroused already and they both knew it.
‘Take me, Ross. Please.’ She watched his face as he moved against her, nudging, gentle, still unwilling entirely to accept her word. Meg dug her nails into his shoulders and lifted her legs, wrapping them around his hips as he thrust, filling her utterly with one stroke. ‘Aah.’ Nothing had ever felt so right, so perfectly meant.
Ross dropped his head so his forehead rested against hers, their breath mingling. Then he began to move and she cried out, rising to meet him, surging with him, arms and legs tight in an effort to join with him utterly, be absorbed into him, to take him into her. She looked up into his face, rapt, taut, and she lifted her hands to pull him down to her so their lips met. And then his mouth was ravaging hers, his tongue filling her, his breath sobbing into her as the tension mounted and tightened and he lifted her off the bed, pushing up on to his knees, pulling her with him so he impaled her impossibly, totally, and everything broke around her in a shattering climax and exploding colour was eclipsed by total blackness.
Chapter Sixteen
Ross was lifting her, laying her down. There was a shout of ecstasy as he convulsed against her, then they were still, the only sound in the room their breathing. His hands drifted gently over her flanks, up to touch her face. ‘Meg,’ he murmured, then his head settled against her shoulder and she realised he was asleep.
Ross was heavy and hot and they were both sticky with salt and sweat and sex. It was, Meg decided as she floated on a hazy dream somewhere between sleep and waking, quite perfect.
She managed to free a hand and stroked his hair, feeling the shape of his skull, elegant under her fingers. ‘I love you.’ She felt herself slip into sleep. ‘I do love you.’
‘Meg. Meg, sweetheart, wake up.’ She blinked her eyes open and found Ross bending over her.
‘Mmm.’ She reached for him. Now they could be slow, could explore, discover, linger over their loving.
‘It is four. The clock has just struck.
You have to get out of here.’
‘Oh.’ The blissful, sensual mood vanished. Meg sat up amidst the tangled wreckage of the bed and surveyed the room, lit by the morning light through the unshielded glass. Ross, naked, was standing in the middle of it, hands on hips. A sight to stare at quite blatantly.
‘What is it?’ He smiled at her, his teeth very white against the black morning stubble.
‘I like looking at you.’ To her delight he blushed.
‘Wicked woman.’ But he came and leaned down to snatch a hard, fast kiss. ‘I like looking at you too.’ Then the smile vanished and he knelt by the bed. ‘Meg. Are you…is it all right?’
‘Our adventure last night or…or what happened afterwards?’
‘Both. Meg, would this have happened if it had not been for last night? I should have waited, we were both…emotional. After that nightmare I was not thinking straight.’
‘I am…fine.’ A very inadequate word for the way she felt. ‘I hope it would have happened anyway. I hope I would have had the courage to tell you how I felt, what I needed.’ She curled her arm around his neck and tugged him down to find his mouth again. When he pulled back she clung on, using his own strength to rise up and wrap herself around him, bare skin against bare skin.
‘Stop it.’ Ross untangled her and sat her on the bed. ‘I never knew what willpower meant until I met you.’ He picked up her wrapper and held it out.
Meg took it, wrapped it around herself and curled up against the head of the bed. Last night she had accepted that she loved this man. She had told him, as he slept, after she had made love with him. Now she had to come to terms with that. She wrapped her arms around her bent knees, rested her chin on them and watched while Ross shook out her nightgown, fingering the rent down the front of it. How long have I loved him?
‘What is it?’ He looked across at her. ‘What is wrong, Meg? There won’t be consequences, I was careful.’
‘No, of course not. I am not worried about that. I am just sleepy.’ She managed a smile, and, if she was honest with herself, she reflected, it did not take much pretence to smile at Ross. But there were consequences far beyond what he meant just now. She would not be able to stay here when he married. She was not even sure her conscience would allow it once he began to court a bride.
‘Come on.’ He bent and kissed her forehead, pushing back the salt-damp tangle of her hair, then pulled her to her feet beside the bed. ‘Tonight, come to me again.’ His lips quirked into a smile. ‘This bed is much bigger than yours.’
‘I know.’ Her imagination was full, as she was sure he had intended, with visions of what they could do on this wide expanse. Dare she risk another night? A night with time to explore each other, to make gentle, leisurely love. What if he guessed the depth of her feelings? She was not certain she could hide them from him.
‘You will come?’
‘If I can do so safely.’ She only had him for a few weeks, perhaps a month or so. She was not strong enough to gainsay both him and her own feelings.
His gaze rested on her, heavy, sensual, happy as she slid off the bed and tied the robe around her waist. I have made him happy. Ross opened the door, holding her gaze until the last moment. And I have made myself happy too.
‘There were smugglers in the bay last night, Mrs Halgate!’ Damaris dumped the hot water cans beside the tin bath, her face alight with her news.
‘I know. I had a very lucky escape.’ Meg decided that she must tell as much of the truth as she could. ‘I had been for a swim—’
‘In the sea, ma’am?’
‘Yes, in the sea. I heard the shot—someone seems to have frightened them away.’
As she hoped, Damaris put two and two together and made half a dozen. ‘So, you’d had your swim and were coming back? How did you know it was smugglers, ma’am?’
‘There was a shouted exchange.’
‘It was his lordship and old Billy Gillan who saw them off,’ the maid confided as she set the screen round the bath. ‘Perrott told me this morning. Apparently there was a fight and his lordship came back in ever such a state. You should see his inexpressibles!’
‘Damaris!’ Meg managed to look suitably shocked at the mention of a man’s nether garments. ‘But you may imagine my alarm. I had no idea anyone was around.’
‘Ooh!’ Damaris’s eyes were wide. ‘They could have been spying on you!’
‘I was wearing my shift,’ Meg said repressively. ‘And it was too dark, just the moon to see by.’ She climbed into the bath and reached for the washcloth. ‘Pour that jug of water over my head, would you please? I must get all the salt out.’
Ross took a gun and the old pointer dog that haunted the stable yard in the hope that someone was going out shooting and made his way through the woodland towards Billy’s cottage. It was remarkable how good a large breakfast—on top of action, danger and a thoroughly satisfactory bout of lovemaking—made a man feel.
He paused and leaned on a fence, narrowed his eyes against the sunlight and looked out over fields he was beginning to learn the names of. He knew where a hedge bank needed repair, just out of sight to the left, he knew how many cottages needed work on them and what the rents were and he was beginning, much to his own surprise, to enjoy learning these things.
My land. The sun was hot on his back and the gentle thump against his legs of the pointer’s tail was all the company he needed just now. My people, my place. My home, as Meg would say. He climbed the fence and plunged, whistling, into the coppice that sheltered Billy’s cottage, a piece of no-man’s land, its ownership lost in time.
‘You make enough noise, boy.’ Billy was leaning against a tree trunk, almost invisible until he moved. ‘Not a bird left, here to Truro, you and your big feet.’
‘We don’t all have to creep about on unlawful business, Billy.’
‘Aar, well. Suppose you don’t, not being lord and master, hereabouts.’ The old man shifted a plug of chewing tobacco in his mouth and spat.
‘Why the devil are you getting mixed up with smugglers?’ Ross hitched one hip against a fallen tree. ‘Tregarne told me he suspected you were at it.’ Silence. ‘Do you need the money?’ This stubborn man had taught him patience when he was a child; now he was prepared to wait it out. ‘I’ve got all day.’
Billy scowled at him. ‘Interfering cursed keepers. The boy’s growing, got a good brain. Lily’s worried.’
‘So you wanted money for William? Has Lily told you what I am doing about him? You don’t need to worry.’
‘Fool of a maid’s got it wrong—you’ll not be acknowledging your own father’s base cheel.’
‘I will and I am. He’s my brother, Billy. And I’m giving them a cottage on the estate and an allowance. You can have one, too, if you want.’
‘Who, me? In one of them cottages with a garden all round so all the neighbourhood can see you and what you’re about? Not me.’ He shifted against the tree. ‘But if you mean it, that’s a good thing you’re doing for Lily and the boy.’
‘You know he wants to be a lawyer?’ The old man nodded. ‘Can’t have his grandfather taken up for smuggling then, can he? Or poaching? You think of that. Kimber will take him to train, but not if you’re in Truro gaol.’
‘What’ll I eat then, if I can’t go after game?’
‘I’ll tell Tregarne that as my brother’s grandfather you may shoot and trap what you like on my land. And don’t look like that,’ Ross added as Billy scowled at him. ‘I don’t care if it spoils your fun—think about William. And don’t you go sneaking off on to anyone else’s land—I can’t help you there.’
‘You’ve grown up into a hard man, Ross Brandon.’ It was, he knew, both praise and an apology.
‘I had a good teacher.’
‘What you doing with that ’ansum maid?’ Billy demanded, obviously happier now he could catch Ross in the wrong.
‘’Ansum? I suppose Mrs Halgate might be described as attractive, yes. Trying to keep her out of trouble with old rogu
es like you around, that’s what I’m doing with her. She’s my housekeeper.’
‘Then what’s she about, capering in the scroff?’
‘Swimming, apparently. She’ll not do it again.’
‘Huh.’ Billy slung his shotgun over his shoulder and snapped his fingers. The black-and-white dog slid out of the undergrowth and came to heel. ‘If you’ve finished giving me a slice of tongue pie, you can come and have some rabbit stew and tell me about this here courting you’re doing.’
‘Who says I’m courting?’ Ross fell into step beside him.
‘I see them carriages and all those fancy pieces getting out of them. Some people can’t see behind the end of their nose, if you ask me.’
‘I should get a wife. And an heir.’ Ross said it with outward confidence, wondering at the hollow feeling in his stomach. It was almost like apprehension, or the sensation that he had done something wrong, but couldn’t work out what. He shrugged. Not enough sleep, obviously.
‘That you should,’ Billy agreed. ‘Just get on with it, boy, and try to think with your head for once.’
Meg stood with Damaris in the middle of Ross’s bedchamber and sighed.
‘I know, ma’am. It’s enough to make you fall into a melancholy, isn’t it? It’s that dark and sort of quietlike.’
‘That’s because of all the curtains.’ Meg turned slowly round, avoiding looking at the bed. ‘The dark mulberry velvet is dignified, but with the dark blue walls and all this heavy furniture, and those paintings, it is just depressing.’ She turned again. ‘These windows match the big room on the other side of the stairs, don’t they? Come along, Damaris, I have an idea.’
An hour later she left the maids exchanging the pale blue silk hangings from the main guest chamber for the mulberry velvet in Ross’s room and went to see what she could find to substitute for the collection of disapproving seventeenth-century portraits on the walls. She was sure there were some seascapes somewhere. She found that her cheeks were growing warm at the thought of the sea. It was going to be impossible if everything she thought about made her recollect Ross and last night. She was still smiling as she passed the door to the library.