She would repay him for his kindness, Selena vowed now. She would be a good wife to him, a good mother to his children. She would be his helpmate, if she could. At the very least, she could continue to manage her plantation and keep that burden from his shoulders. Perhaps he would even want to learn how to become a planter. Kyle Ramsey was a seaman at heart, and even though he had expressed his intentions of relinquishing command of his ship, she had sensed his great regret. She might be able to help him adjust to the land, though, to help ease his pain at having to give up the sea.
And perhaps, Selena thought wistfully, they might even deal well together. They were not much alike, yet many couples began life together with less in common than she and Kyle shared. In spite of their differences, he was a man she could admire. He was compassionate, she knew, remembering his kindness toward Colin that evening and his gentleness toward herself the previous night. And he had honor, a sense of responsibility. The way he had protected her from Avery’s physical threats, the way he had leaped to the defense of her reputation to save her from disgrace, proved how noble he was. He was honest, as well—to the point of bluntness—and his intelligence she had already noted. Even his rugged vitality was something she found attractive.
Perhaps if she worked at it, theirs could still be a good marriage.
By the time she had finished brushing her hair several hundred strokes, Selena felt she had regained a measure of her customary serenity. She was about to arrange the silken tresses into a braid when she heard a soft footfall behind her.
Selena turned quickly. The imposing figure of Kyle Ramsey stood just inside the French doors.
He was a towering masculine presence in her delicate bedroom. He had shed his cravat but otherwise was dressed in the same elegant evening clothes he had worn to the ball, the rich brown superfine of his coat molding his powerful shoulders, the tight buff stockinette of his breeches hugging his long, muscular legs. And he wore the same grim expression she had seen earlier, when she had left him discussing their upcoming nuptials with the governor while Beth and Drew Thorpe escorted her home. His rugged features were a mask of stone.
“C-Captain,” Selena stammered, extremely uncomfortable with the dark way Kyle was regarding her, his gaze narrowed and assessing. Her hand crept to the throat of her wrapper. Her state of undress embarrassed her, despite the previous intimacies that had passed between them—or perhaps because of them.
The corner of his mouth twisted wryly in a gesture that was not quite a smile. “I presume our engagement gives me the right to speak to you privately.”
“I…of course.”
“Don’t look so worried, Miss Markham. I don’t intend to ravish you. That’s what precipitated this mess, and I’m not fool enough to repeat it.”
Selena didn’t know what to say to his declaration, so she waited. Yet when Kyle took another step into the room, she rose quickly, not wanting to be at a disadvantage with him looming over her. His imposing height intimidated her, as did his grim look.
At her action he checked his stride, his hazel eyes sweeping over her muslin-clad form before returning to her face. “The governor wants the wedding to be held two days from now.”
“Two days?”
“That’s what I said.” His biting tone carried anger and frustration. “Governor Ramsay seems to have appointed himself your guardian.”
Selena eyed Kyle warily. He hardly looked overjoyed at the prospect of becoming a bridegroom. “My father was a close friend of the governor,” she explained hesitantly. “I suppose he feels responsible for my welfare.”
“Oh, he made that quite clear! Governor Ramsay threatened to confiscate my ship if I don’t go through with the ceremony. He means to trump up charges and accuse me of trading illegally.”
Selena had the disturbing feeling that something was terribly wrong; the captain wasn’t merely objecting to the timing of their wedding. “You…don’t want the ceremony to be held just yet?”
“I don’t want it to be held at all,” Kyle snapped. “But now it will be up to you to beg off. I’ve already tried and failed.”
“I don’t understand.”
He sighed, running an impatient hand through his chestnut hair. “It’s very simple, Miss Markham. When I announced our engagement this evening, I had no intention of wedding you. I planned to take you with me when I left here, though, so you could be spared the scandal. I’ll settle you somewhere in the States, wherever you would like to live.”
She felt as if a blow had been delivered to her midriff and had driven the breath from her lungs. “You,” she said hoarsely, “want me… to become your… mistress?”
“Good God, no!” Kyle took a deep breath, trying to keep his tone calm. “I don’t need a mistress any more than I need a wife. But I feel obliged to help you. In the States, you will have an opportunity to start over. You can build a new life for yourself there.”
Selena stared at Kyle in shock, her eyes wide in her pale face. Her hands crept up protectively to cover her stomach as she tried to marshal her scattered thoughts. It would have been better, she realized, if he had never announced their engagement, if he had left her to weather the scandal alone. She might be branded an outcast on the island, but at least here she would have her few close friends to support her. With them, she could endure the slights and slurs, the whispers and jeers. But not in a strange land, with a strange people. Without even the support a husband, however unwilling he might be, would offer.
“No,” she whispered.
“No? What do you mean, no?”
“I won’t go with you.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Miss Markham…Selena, perhaps you don’t understand. Governor Ramsay doesn’t intend to let my ship or crew leave the island unless he’s satisfied that you will be properly cared for. You’ll have to be the one to persuade him. You can say we’re to be married at my home in Natchez. You can use the excuse that my sisters want to be present for the ceremony. I’ve already explained that to the governor, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He’ll have to hear it from your own lips. That’s the only way he’ll allow the ceremony to be postponed.”
Slowly, Selena shook her head. “No,” she said again, quietly. “I won’t go with you. You aren’t required to marry me, but I won’t leave my home to live alone, among strangers.”
Kyle took a step toward her, clenching his hands. “Didn’t you hear what I said? I can’t leave here without the governor’s permission, and he won’t grant it unless you come with me!”
Selena raised her trembling chin. “I heard you, Captain. But I don’t think you heard me. I won’t go with you, not without benefit of clergy.”
“I won’t marry you! I can’t.”
Her eyes began to flash quietly. She would not beg him to wed her. Nor would she back down. “Why did you announce our engagement, then? Why couldn’t you have let me handle it? I wouldn’t have involved you.”
“I was saving your reputation!”
“I didn’t ask you to!”
They stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, Selena broke the tense silence. “I think you should leave, Captain.”
Kyle ground his teeth. She was so lovely and demure in her lace-trimmed wrapper—cool and virginal and stunningly arousing. He could feel himself responding, a fact that only inflamed his anger. “I won’t leave until this is settled,” he returned darkly.
“Very well, I will speak to the governor tomorrow. Will that satisfy you?”
“And tell him what?”
“That we have decided we won’t suit, of course.”
“He won’t accept that!”
“I’m sorry, but that is the best I can do. I won’t go with you. Now, Captain… you may leave.”
When she tried to sweep past Kyle to show him the door, his strong hand spun her around. “Devil take it, I don’t want to marry you! Can’t you get that through your beautiful head?”
He seemed enormous and very near. His powerful body emanated
heat, matching the heat that was rising in her cheeks. “I don’t wish to marry you, either,” she returned with frozen civility. “The last thing I want is a barbarian for a husband!”
His eyes blazed with amber fire. “Barbarian? Lady,” he warned, his voice rumbling softly above her like distant thunder, “I haven’t begun to act the barbarian.”
His hold on her arm tightened. Slowly, with menacing deliberation, he backed her against the wall. His grip wasn’t overly painful, but the casual strength exerted in his fingers startled her.
“You don’t want to be my wife,” he said between his teeth, “I assure you.”
His other hand rose to grasp her chin, but Selena turned her face away, eluding capture. When his hard fingers at last closed over her jaw, she gasped in alarm. “Please…don’t hurt me.”
Kyle stared down at her. He hadn’t missed the flare of temper in her blue eyes, or the fright. “I am not,” he gritted through his teeth, “going to hurt you. I’ve never hurt a woman in my life. But I mean to convince you to reconsider your decision.”
His voice was hoarse with anger, his tone adamant. He wouldn’t let her or the governor or anyone else deny him the chance to still win his son. He had acted instinctively earlier that evening. Even though Selena had borne the slurs and accusations with a touching dignity that had earned his admiration, her distress had been almost palpable. Seeing her in such straits had been more than he could bear, arousing in him a sudden need to protect and comfort her. But his kindness couldn’t extend to actually marrying her. Not while Clay needed him....
The target of Kyle’s scowl, Selena fought the urge to cringe. His shirt was open at the neck, and she could see the corded muscles of his throat and the pulse that was beating furiously there. “Please… you’re frightening me.”
“Oh, famous. Cry foul. Plead feminine frailty.”
“Well, I can’t fight you! You’re much stronger than I.”
“It isn’t fair, is it? But then neither is it fair to force me into marriage.”
“I said you weren’t obliged to marry me.”
Kyle clenched his teeth in frustration. They were back to an impasse. Yet there had to be something he could do to convince her. Impatiently, he released her chin and shifted his grip to her arm, his fingers unintentionally brushing her breast. He was instantly aware of the contact. And so was she, he could tell by the furious blush that rose suddenly to her cheeks.
Selena attempted to ignore the effect of his unintentional caress. “Would you kindly,” she uttered icily, clenching her own teeth, “remove your hands from my person?”
It was a supremely proper response, just the kind he would expect from a woman of her reserved manner and social standing. She would make the perfect wife for a cold-blooded aristocrat, Kyle thought nastily. She’d obviously been raised to be prim, restrained, ladylike. From the cradle, well-bred ladies like her were taught to hold the physical side of marriage in aversion. Perhaps, though, he could use her reticence to his own advantage.
“You don’t want me to touch you, do you?” he demanded, deliberately running his fingers along the side of her breast, watching with grim satisfaction as Selena flinched. “Surely you know that as my wife, you would have to accept my attentions.” He bent closer, his face dark and threatening. “Shall I show you how I would assert my husbandly rights?”
He lowered his mouth and assaulted her lips with a controlled expertise that left her gasping. His tongue plundered her tender recesses, thrusting deeply, shocking her with its arousing warmth. When Kyle finally raised his head, Selena’s breasts were heaving in outrage and something else. Something very much like desire.
“You didn’t enjoy my lovemaking last night, did you, Miss Markham?” Kyle goaded, his callused palm gliding down her throat to lie against the rapidly beating pulse at its base.
Still reeling from his devastating kiss, Selena hardly understood the question. His lovemaking? No, after his initial passionate advances, she hadn’t enjoyed it at all. The act of consummation had been painful and rather undignified. If given the choice, she could happily live without it.
But that seemed to be precisely his point; she wouldn’t be given the choice. He bent again to let his lips hover over hers.
“You will have to get used to this if you’re my wife,” he warned, his breath warm and dangerous against her mouth. “You’ll have to be available to me whenever I want you.”
Suiting action to words, he pressed his tall, wickedly muscular body against her slim one. A blaze of excitement and tension leaped through Selena, her reaction a purely primitive response, woman to man…His body was hard and taut with sinew. She could feel its heat and vibrancy through her nightdress.
Helplessly, Selena stared up at him, two bright spots of color staining her cheeks.
His eyes smoldering, Kyle stared back at her. “Consider it, Moonwitch,” he prodded, his fingers threading through the pale tresses that spilled over her shoulders. “As my wife, you’ll be at my beck and call. I could take you anytime I please, anywhere I please.”
If he was trying to destroy her resistance, he was succeeding. His voice had suddenly grown husky with sensuality, gliding through her like a hot knife through butter. As if he might follow his voice, he fitted their bodies together from chest to thigh. Feeling the male part of him vital and pulsing against the juncture of her thighs, Selena tensed with a mingling of dread and wanton longing.
Her rigidity only encouraged Kyle to pursue his course of persuasion. Again he bent his head, although this time he didn’t kiss her. Instead his tongue flicked out to touch the corner of her mouth, sending a flame flickering through her to gather in the deep recesses of her body, between her thighs. As his lips trailed down the sensitive skin of her throat, Selena let her eyelids flutter closed.
“I would do this to you, for instance…” His large hand moved down her throat to cup the soft fullness of her breast, his thumb brushing her nipple, stroking until it stood rigidly erect. Selena was scarcely aware that the sharp gasp came from her own throat. “And this…” Kyle murmured. His other arm went around her, his fingers cupping her buttocks to bring her hips even closer to his. “I would take my pleasure of you at my leisure, whenever I wanted.”
A shudder shook her body.
“I would waken all the passion in that lovely, untutored body of yours—” Kyle broke off suddenly, realizing his mistake. He could feel his body throbbing at the image his own words were arousing.
Mentally flaying his thoughts into obedience, he made a fierce effort to control himself. “I would make you moan for me, Moonwitch,” he rasped against her silken throat. “I would make you scream with pleasure.”
Selena believed him; the fire streaking through her loins was so fierce it made her tremble. Of their own volition, her hands crept to his powerful shoulders, and she let her head fall back, giving him full access to her throat.
But he only bent further, his lips seeking her left breast, his mouth closing over the taut nipple, hot and moist even through the layers of muslin. Powerless, wanting, Selena arched her body upward against Kyle’s mouth.
Kyle groaned in response. This wasn’t working. He was driving himself insane. He could feel sweat break out on his palms as he lost the battle for control.
Selena sensed his struggle. Through the heated dimness that had enveloped her mind, she heard him groan softly. His hoarse whisper dredged from his throat “Devil take it, I can’t keep my hands off you.”
With an abruptness that left her swaying, Kyle tore himself away. He stood there at arm’s length, staring at Selena in the gasping silence as if seeing her for the first time, as if she were an apparition, his expression one of dismay, a look halfway between pain and pleasure.
She was glad for the support of the wall behind her back. Otherwise she might have fallen, her legs felt so warm and weak. Unsteadily, she fixed her gaze on his mouth, not comprehending why he had broken off their embrace.
Kyle hardly knew
why himself as he looked at Selena standing there, wide-eyed and vulnerable and trembling. And lovely. God, she was lovely. He wanted her with a fierceness that took his breath away.
Marriage, he reminded himself, trying to regain some semblance of control over his throbbing body. That was why he couldn’t have her. He would have to marry her then, and he couldn’t do that and claim his son, too. He wanted his son more. Didn’t he?
Kyle shook his head to clear his reeling senses. His strategy had backfired with a vengeance. He had begun by trying to frighten and threaten her and had wound up with his own resolutions threatened, instead. He had wanted nothing more than to carry her to her bed and take up where they had left off the previous night, to show her just what depths of passion could be found in her proper lady’s body.
Perhaps, he thought disparagingly as his inner turmoil turned to self-scorn, he was the fool he kept insisting that he wasn’t. He should never have gotten so near Selena, should have kept his distance. Hadn’t his past encounters with her taught him that he had no self-command where she was concerned, that he couldn’t resist her?
But not again. From now on, he would stay well away from her. He wouldn’t lose control of himself again.
But there was still the problem of the wedding. Kyle clenched his fists, anger sweeping through him again as he remembered the governor’s ultimatum. Fiend seize it, he would not be forced into marriage, not even to a woman as lovely and bewitching as Selena Markham.
He gave her a hard look, his mouth tightening as he stared at her softly heaving bosom and the tantalizing mouth that was still full and hot from his angry kisses. She might look fragile, but he was beginning to suspect she was as strong as steel inside. He wouldn’t persuade her to change her mind.
But just because he would be required to go through with the ceremony didn’t mean he had to go through with the marriage.
Moonwitch Page 8