She blinked. “No?”
“No.”
“Not even the Frenchwoman who gave you a child?”
He watched her for a moment, then leaned over to kiss the bottom of her foot.
“That tickles,” she said through a giggle.
He raised his head and said richly, “You like this, don’t you?”
She pulled her foot from his grasp. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question was that?”
She rolled her eyes and slammed the backs of her hands on the bed. “I’m sure you know what I’m asking, Brent.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, ‘why?’” she fairly blurted.
“Why do you want to know?” His gaze became intense. “Do you care that much about me and my past?”
“Of course I care,” she admitted quietly, timidly, crossing her arms over her chest. He grinned in satisfaction, and she dropped her gaze. After a moment of silence, and without glancing up, she softly asked, “You’d never consider letting me leave, would you?”
“Leave to where?”
She shrugged. “Anywhere.”
He took her other foot and began the same circular motions with the pad of his thumb. “If you left me for more than a week, Caroline, I think I’d be crushed.”
“Crushed?” That answer pleased her enormously.
“Are you planning a holiday away from me already?”
She smiled coyly. “No.” Then she looked from his fervent stare down to her nails with apparent newfound interest. “But I’ll take a holiday from your bed if you continue to avoid my questions.”
Suddenly he grabbed her leg and pulled her down to his level, beside him, grasping her around the waist and practically flinging her up to lie on top of him.
With playful exaggeration, she pushed her hair from her face to better view his brilliant, greenish-brown eyes, now crinkled once more in mild humor.
“I adore the way you feel on top of me, Caroline,” he whispered through a groan. “You’re warm and soft and fit me perfectly, making me hard and desperate to be inside of you again.”
Her breath quickened from the comment, stirring sensations of recklessness and sensuality she’d never felt before. “Goodness, my lord, hard and desperate? That’s not very romantic.”
He gave her a rakish grin, then holding her against him, rolled them both over on the bed so she lay beneath him. “Unromantic, maybe, but directly to the point, my sweet wife.”
She laughed quietly and said, “I’m sure ‘hard and desperate’ sounds romantic in French.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Speak to me in French,” she quietly demanded after a moment of silence.
He shook his head.
“Yes.”
“No.”
She scrutinized every inch of his face as she ran her fingers through his hair. “You can’t remember any romantic words?”
“I can remember plenty,” he boasted.
She giggled and squirmed beneath him, and with that he nuzzled her neck. “Please, Brent?”
He brushed kisses along her neck and jaw as he pulled his head up slightly, moving to his side just enough to take his weight from her.
“English is my mother tongue, Caroline. French was my job.”
“But—”
He touched her mouth, his expression becoming contemplative. “The words are the same—they only sound prettier because they’re different and you don’t understand what they mean. It’s the meaning that matters.” He traced a pattern along her lips with his fingertips, then moved his hand to stroke her cheek.
Bravely she prodded for what she truly wanted to hear. “So you never spoke French to the other ladies you bedded?”
He looked down at her strangely, then slowly shook his head in disbelief. “For as long as I live, I’m sure I’ll never understand females.” She did nothing but stare innocently into his eyes, and after a moment of apparent indecision, he murmured, “You really care to know?”
She nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck to keep him from escape if he chose to attempt one.
He sighed and kissed the tip of her nose. “I spoke French to Rosalyn’s mother because it’s the only language she knows. I did not, however, speak to her while we had sex because we had nothing much to say before, during, or after.” He cupped her cheek with his palm. “I don’t think I ever spent more than fifteen minutes with her in bed each time, and since you’re so unbelievably curious, my darling Caroline, let me inform you that all the other ladies I’ve bedded have added up to only two.”
She looked at him stupidly. “Only two what?”
He grinned sheepishly and lowered his voice. “Only two other ladies.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “But you’re a man.”
That made him laugh. “What does that have to do with it?”
She closed her arms even tighter around his neck and ran her fingers through his hair. “Nothing, I suppose, except men seem to find bedding women over and over so relevant to their masculinity. After tonight I suppose I understand the pleasure, which leads me to wonder how a man your age, unmarried, could keep himself from a lady’s bed.”
He lifted his leg over hers, holding her down with his thigh. “My education and work were very important to me, demanding most of my attention for several years, Caroline. Sometimes I felt lonely, even undesirable, but I had other things to do to occupy my time, and truthfully, women didn’t hold that much significance in my life. Then in France I met Rosalyn’s mother, and she satisfied my physical needs when I needed her to do so.”
“That sounds so positively arrogant,” she said with a smile, brushing a stray lock of hair from his cheek. “What about the other two ladies?”
He grinned. “What about them?”
She looked into his eyes. “Who were they?”
He reached down to cup her breast, causing a sudden flutter in her stomach. She, however, would not be undone.
“Who were they?” she asked again slowly, more firmly.
He gently flicked his thumb over her nipple, watching her succumb to his touch, as he softly replied, “The first was the daughter of one of my mother’s chambermaids.”
She gaped at him, and that made him grin again.
“She was nineteen, I was seventeen, and before I really knew what was happening, she seduced me in the stables one rainy afternoon. The whole affair was quite awkward, but she knew what she was doing. We managed it eight times in two days without getting caught, then she left the estate to pursue…other gallant men, I suppose. I haven’t seen her since.”
Loudly, incredulously, she said, “Eight times? You did it eight times in two days?”
“I was seventeen years old, Caroline,” he explained in defense, as if that explained everything.
Her eyes remained wide with keen interest. “Could you do it that many times now?”
Slowly he started running his toes up and down her leg. “I doubt it but I’d be happy to try, little one.”
Her mind suddenly turned to something more pertinent to their lives at the moment. “And what if you got her pregnant?”
“I didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
He gently squeezed her nipple. “Because if I had, her mother would have demanded compensation from my family, and I would have had to leave the country to escape my mother’s wrath.”
That statement saddened her tremendously, and she leaned up to kiss him fully. He responded in kind by wrapping his arms completely around her and holding her tightly until she released him.
“Who was the third?” she whispered against his mouth.
Without hesitation, he murmured, “The third was you.”
Caroline grinned, satiated, cupping his face. “So you really never bedded the beautiful Pauline Sinclair?”
Quickly and unexpectedly, he climbed completely on top of her, twisting her hair around his fingers to firmly brace her head in his palms.
“Who told you she was beautiful?” he demanded, grinning pompously.
Since she could think of nothing to say except the truth, she finally mumbled, “Nedda…mentioned it.”
He laughed softly, amazed. “You asked my housekeeper about the women in my past?”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Of course not.” Then, as he didn’t look the least bit convinced, she confessed what he already knew. “I just wondered why you didn’t marry her since, according to Nedda, she was the epitome of social grace and loveliness.”
His features softened. “I didn’t want to after I found her having sex in her stables with another man.” He laughed again mildly. “Besides the bedroom, that seems to be the place for first couplings.”
She stared at him, shocked. “You found her like that?”
“With her legs spread wide and her skirt above her waist.”
Caroline felt a flood of sympathy wash over her, trying to imagine how he must have felt to see the woman he intended to marry engaged so indecently with another.
“Nedda told me she didn’t want to marry you because of Rosalyn,” she quietly confessed.
He lightly caressed her cheek with his knuckles. “I let others believe she didn’t want me because that was the honorable thing to do. It wasn’t my place to spread the news to society and ruin her life. She was managing to do it nicely all by herself.”
Caroline cupped his cheeks with her hands, holding him firmly in front of her face. “I’ve never known a person I’ve admired more than you, Brent,” she whispered with absolute adoration and wonder. “I’m so proud to be your wife.”
The honesty she conveyed in her tone and expression seemed to daze him for a moment as she watched confusion, then gentleness cross his brow. Then he lowered his mouth and kissed her deeply, fully, wrapping his arms around her as if they were one.
“I want to make love to you again, Caroline,” he urged softly, his voice thick with emotion.
“I want you to,” she whispered in complete surrender, clinging to him tightly, moving her hand to glide her fingertips along his spine, kissing his face and jaw in smooth, gentle touches. After hearing him groan and feeling his growing need rubbing against her hips, she quietly amended, “But I do have one condition in allowing you the generous use of my body.”
He slowly raised his head to look at her smugly. “I’m truly frightened to ask what that might be.”
Her face broke out into a smile again. “How did you acquire a green house?”
He relaxed, his eyes flashing with knowing sensitivity. “It was my mother’s.”
“Your mother was a botanist?” she asked, surprised.
“She tried to be.” He covered her breast with his palm. “She never had your talent or commitment, though.”
Her gaze dropped to his chest, her heart swelling with plea sure from that statement.
“Can I keep it?” she fairly begged, knowing she sounded timid and unsure, and even in her boldness unable to look him in the eye with the question.
Suddenly, as if in answer, he moved down and covered her nipple with his mouth, rotating his tongue with expertise, sucking and kissing and making her weak. She spread her legs for his probing hand and succumbed to the need.
Words were no longer necessary.
He woke with a start, sitting abruptly, heart pounding, body bathed in sweat. His eyes tried to adjust to the darkness surrounding him as his mind worked to lift the cloud of confusion, to calm the rush of fear that enveloped him.
It was night, the dead of night since no fire burned, and as he wiped a shaking hand over his head, the disorientation slowly gave way to remembrance.
To his side lay his wife, sleeping peacefully. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the room lighted only from soft moonglow, he turned to her, watching her, his body calming, his tense muscles relaxing as he breathed deeply and purposefully.
Her beautiful hair flowed in waves across the pillow, eyes shut firmly in deep slumber as she faced him. One bare breast peeked out from the sheet, nipple hardened from the chill in the room, and without thought he reached down and covered her gently with the blankets, which in turn caused her to stir and swiftly turn onto her stomach, her arms pushed up under her pillow.
His chest tightened as he thought about her, about the night before, her loving him with such passion and beauty, giving not only her body but her soul to him as well. And because of their growing closeness, the dream filled him with disparity and urgency. With Caroline in his life, becoming everything to him, his greatest fears were ahead, disguised in the unknown.
Philip knew he was alive somewhere. That was the dream, so vivid and terrifying.
Philip was coming—he could feel it in the air, in the darkness—and his sweet, beautiful wife would be the killer’s target. Rosalyn was Christine’s child, and that alone would keep her safe. He knew of her already and had so for years. But Caroline was English. She belonged to him. And that knowledge, if he knew of it, would eat at the Frenchman. Until he saw Philip dead with his eyes, he could never be sure, and the nightmares would never end.
He looked back to her, moonlight filtering through the window to strike the softness of her back, and suddenly he felt the incredible urge to hold her. He lowered his body onto the bed again, covered both of them with the quilt, and snuggled against her warmth. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to him, holding her tightly as he grazed his palm along her arm.
In all of his life, through the loneliness, the devastation of war, the trench of death, he’d never felt so frightened of the unknown, of what was to come. Philip was probably already in England, and Caroline’s very existence was now in his hands.
“I will keep you safe, my love,” he whispered into the cold, quiet night, burying his face in her hair. “I will keep you safe.”
Chapter 18
He watched her walk toward the door of the structure, her dark hair flowing loosely behind her in the breeze, her dirty hands filled with some sort of dark vine she evidently intended to plant inside. She hadn’t noticed him crouching in the brush, and in fact had seemed completely oblivious to his presence for the last five days.
Philip couldn’t have been more pleased.
She was an ugly little thing, being English and dark, although to be fair he’d only laid eyes on her from a distance, and each time she’d been clothed in rags and covered with dirt. He would hardly call her handsome, and certainly she was never blond. The English pig was so stupid, and had he not checked his facts, he’d have probably killed the wrong woman.
Still, he considered, staring hard at her in growing appreciation, she had a marvelous figure, which was undoubtedly why the Raven married her, as she was full-breasted, small-waisted, and a sensual pleasure to watch, her hips swaying so erotically as she walked that she made even him grow fully erect each time he saw her. What he wouldn’t give to surprise the Raven’s English whore of a wife, climb on top of her, and force her to succumb to French passion before he sliced her throat.
He gazed at her until she opened the door and disappeared inside, his trained mind absorbing everything, knowing it was all falling into place at last, as he now had what he needed. He knew when she arrived each day, how long she stayed, and she was almost always alone except for the occasional company of Christine’s sick, half-English little girl.
Yes, the Raven’s wife was his weakness, the flaw in his armor, regardless of whether he cared for her, because haughty English scum prided themselves so much on heirs and bloodlines. He would just take it upon himself to deprive the English of one more quality heir by disposing of the broodmare before he took vengeance on the only person to arrogantly think he’d bested the great Philip Rouselle, to arrogantly think he could infiltrate the French and not pay the price.
Slowly he backed up and moved silently into the trees. It was getting late, the air unbearably chilly and growing colder, and the fat English pig was probably already missing him.
But it would be over soon, and
then he’d find himself on a long holiday with several bottles of red bordeaux and a willing Frenchwoman to wrap her legs around his body of ice. He deserved such comforts after living so long in utter filth, and with each passing week he grew more restless. The time had come to strike.
In days it would all be over.
…I hope you’ll not have any further delays in leaving England, since we’ve been anxiously waiting to combine your experiments with ours for more than a year now.
By the way, Mr. Grayson, we’ve finally been able to produce the lavender species; however, they’re unstable, and the purple tips don’t always breed into them. We’ll certainly be thankful to have you with us on a permanent basis…
Caroline folded the letter and placed it next to a stack of notes on her desk. Stephanie had brought it to her only that afternoon, along with other correspondence and the innocent announcement that she’d be wearing her older sister’s emeralds for various social functions throughout the holiday season. Stephanie had never once considered selling them to help her, she’d admitted bluntly, confident that her sister would see reason, admit to the growing affections she felt for her husband, and stay in England. How anyone could be so sweet and naïve, yet at the same time so calculating, Caroline couldn’t fathom.
Sighing complacently, she returned to her planting.
She needed to write Professor Jenson and explain as well, but doing so, even thinking about it, saddened her tremendously. Although she’d been her husband’s eager and passionate lover for nearly three weeks, the turmoil still burned within. Her mind and talent as a superior botanist would never be known and used to the fullest. Never would she realize her dream of becoming one of Europe’s leading experts on plant breeding, all because she’d allowed her heart to envelop her rational thinking the night she gave herself to her husband.
How ironic that she would allow her wonderful, giving husband to unwillingly and unknowingly take away the only thing she’d ever truly cherished. She almost laughed with bitterness as she realized Sir Albert’s original letter of rejection was quite literally correct. She would no doubt make her husband and family proud of her accomplishments, and in a very small way, even content as she was at Miramont with Brent, she felt hurt and frustrated that they would be the only ones to lay witness to her beautiful creations, her expertise.
My Darling Caroline Page 20