Her lips turned down in dismissal. “In the dark in a blizzard? And both of us on foot and not dressed for this weather? We’d be taking our lives into our own hands.”
“It would save a scandal.”
“I’d rather stay alive.” She began to chop an onion with impressive efficiency. “I grew up in this valley. Trust me when I say this is likely no more than a flurry.”
A flurry? The world outside was howling white horror. But he put aside further arguments for now. As she said, there was no point borrowing trouble. They were stuck here until the storm worked itself out.
He’d marry her tomorrow, scandal or no scandal, but she clearly didn’t share his enthusiasm for the idea, damn it. “Can I help?”
She looked up with a quick smile. And visible relief that he changed the subject. “I doubt I’ve got the strength to dice that bacon. Can I give it to you? You might need an ax.”
***
“What time is it?” Bess asked from the table where she lingered over her empty bowl. Rory sat on the bed across the room, legs stretched over the rough mattress.
The improvised soup had been surprisingly palatable, and now they drank herbal tea from tin mugs. The hut was cozy, and they’d both removed their heavy outer coats which lay steaming in front of the fire.
He set down his tea and retrieved his pocket watch. “Nearly eight.”
When he’d ventured outside for more snow, he’d fumbled around in pitch darkness. The blizzard still raged, but he’d become so used to the wind, he hardly noticed it anymore.
“It’s getting colder again.”
“Yes.” He extended a hand toward her and hoped he wasn’t making a mistake trusting to his willpower. But he couldn’t bear to have her to himself, yet so far away. “Body heat is the best way to keep warm.”
Pleasure filled him when she crossed to take his hand, kneeling on the low bed. He slid his arm around her and tucked her close into his side, pulling up the blankets until they were cocooned against the wall.
“You’re shivering,” he said in dismay. He reached for the flask of homemade liquor he’d put on the floor beside the bed. “Have some of this. It might help.”
She sneaked a hand out from under the blanket and took the flask. She brought it to her lips and took a sip, then choked. “That’s vile.”
He laughed as he took back the flask and tested its contents. Aye, she was right. It was bloody dreadful, but once the fumes had cleared, he appreciated the spreading warmth. “Well, we’re stuck here. Any idea how to pass the time? If I had a pack of cards, I could teach you piquet.”
“I can play piquet.”
He snuggled her closer. He reminded his animal self that he’d offered her body heat, not the heat of passion. Difficult to remember when he touched her. “Miss Farrar, you clearly have a wicked past.”
“Not very,” she mumbled into his chest. “Your brother taught me.”
“Aye?” Ridiculous to be jealous of a dead man.
“When you’re ill, you have a lot of time to fill. I used to visit the Abbey to read to him. One day he was bored with the story and suggested cards instead.”
Rory struggled not to picture an intimate scene in the same state bedroom where he’d slept alone and longing since meeting Bess. It was much more likely she and his brother had been in one of the public rooms downstairs.
He was a fool to torment himself. If Bess had wanted the late Earl of Channing, she’d have married him.
“I’ll have to make sure all the huts on my estate are stocked with playing cards.” He offered the rough spirit, but she shook her head. He braved another taste, then sealed the flask and put it beside the bed.
Despite their dire situation, he felt ridiculously content. Bess was soft and warm in his embrace, and her rich scent, tinged with wood smoke, filled his senses.
He rested his cheek on her shining hair. A hint of wet wool also teased his nostrils, despite the fire drying them out over the last few hours. But beneath that, she was all delicious woman.
With all his might, he strived to behave like a solicitous gentleman, and not a rapacious seducer. After all, her presence in his arms was a mark of hard-won trust. She clearly had no idea how his blood surged at her nearness, nor how he fought the need to drag her beneath him and warm her up the best way he knew.
Since he’d gone to sea, he’d had few dealings with virtuous ladies. The sort of lassie who succumbed to a sailor knew he’d be away on the next tide. Bess, for all her strength and vigor and courage, struck him as so heartbreakingly fragile right now. He loathed the thought of frightening her with his mighty desire.
If she’d been one of his lusty mistresses, he’d tumble her in a blink. But she wasn’t. She was a chaste vicar’s daughter, and he had no idea how to shift her feelings from cordiality to passion. She was pure and perfect, and he wanted her so fiercely, he felt ready to burst into flame.
“I’m sorry I got you into this.”
He emerged from his brooding to meet her solemn blue gaze. “How is this your fault? Unless you’ve got some influence with the snow gods that I don’t know about. If you have, for pity’s sake, ask them to lay off.”
She smiled, but her heart wasn’t in it. “I made you come out cutting Christmas greenery. In fact, I got you involved in having Christmas at the Abbey in the first place.”
“Silly wee chit, don’t you know yet that every step of the way, I’ve done exactly what I want?”
She studied him, her brow wrinkling in puzzlement. “Have you?”
“Aye. Unless you’d prodded me out of my bachelor squalor, I’d never have come to know the villagers. Or you.”
“Oh.” She put more effort into her smile. “I’m glad.”
“That I joined in?”
“Yes. And that I got to know you, too.”
Dear Lord, he ached to kiss her. To do more. Only with the greatest effort did he resist hauling her up against him. He’d been bold enough to kiss her that first day. Now too much hinged on what happened between them for such recklessness.
Her smile faded, replaced by an intent expression that corroded his frail self-control. “I know just how I’d like to pass the time.”
“We could swap life stories. Although no doubt mine would shock you.”
“Perhaps it would.” She paused. “And perhaps I want to be shocked.”
He didn’t understand. “Bess?”
She licked her lips and tilted her chin at a defiant angle. “Lord Channing, would you please kiss me again?”
Chapter 7
Lord Channing’s striking face tightened with shock. His jaw hardened and a muscle flickered erratically in his cheek. He looked like she’d asked him to shoot his best friend.
The bed suddenly felt intolerably small. Sick with humiliation, Bess wriggled to escape the arm she now realized that he’d placed about her for purely practical reasons. Her cheeks burned hotter than his skillfully built fire. “I’m sorry. I was stupid to ask.”
“It’s too dangerous to kiss you here.” He sounded austere and resolute, and not at all like the lighthearted man who had teased her about her mythical wicked past.
“I told you I won’t kick up a scandal.”
“But if I kiss you—devil take you, lassie, will you sit still one wee moment?—it’s surer than sunrise that I’ll do something worthy of a scandal.”
Puzzled, she stopped pushing and studied his somber features. “I trust to your honor.”
His lips twisted in self-derision. “Well, that makes one of us.”
A deep breath fought her dizziness. “I…I liked it when you kissed me before.”
“So did I.”
That was something. She seized her courage with both hands and squeezed it until it squeaked. “So why haven’t you done it again?”
“Because you’re a virtuous woman, and gossip runs through this damn village like a flood down a dry valley.”
“People will think we’ve been kissing anyway.”
> “People will think a lot more than that,” he said grimly. “If I kiss you, they’ll be right.”
Monumental disappointment crushed her. He tried to let her down lightly, but rejection was still rejection. She went back to trying to escape. “Please forget I said anything.”
Despite her best efforts, tears clogged her voice. She’d never invited a man’s attentions before. After today’s debacle, even if her life depended on it, she’d never invite them again.
But, oh, how it smarted to hunger so desperately, and know Channing felt nothing in return.
“Bess, you make it so impossible.” He sounded like she tested him to the ends of endurance.
Still she wouldn’t look at him. “I promise I won’t embarrass you again.”
“What?” The few inches she’d managed to claim back between them disappeared as he caught her with ruthless hands and shoved her onto her back. He loomed over her, big and powerful and, unless she was mistaken, fuming.
She ought to be frightened. But she’d sunk so far into sin since she’d met Channing that her wanton blood surged with female excitement. And a much overdue return of spirit.
“You’re to blame. You made me think you like me.”
He stared at her as if she was losing her mind. “I do like you.”
She raised her chin and glared at him. “I mean…like me.”
“I do.”
He clearly didn’t understand. Which was odd. He was one of the most perceptive people she knew. “You kissed me.”
“I did.”
She frowned as her temper spiked. “If you’re not attracted to a girl, it’s wicked to kiss her.”
“It’s wicked to kiss her anyway.”
“Exactly,” she said, so desperate to score a point against him that she hardly knew what she agreed to. “And it’s wicked to single her out and call her pretty and…and make her feel special.”
“You are special.”
Bess immediately dismissed that as another attempt to soothe her hurt feelings. “It’s wicked to touch her, and take her arm, and look at her as if you want to kiss her again.”
“The way I’m looking at you now?”
Something in his voice choked any answer in her throat. Confused, she stared up into his face. The unwavering regard of those deep green eyes had her heart performing drunken cartwheels.
Channing indeed looked as if he intended to snap her up like a bonbon between his straight white teeth. He leaned over her, caging her between his impressive chest and the arm he propped against the pillow near her head. Against her side, his body was pleasingly heavy and hot.
“Y…yes,” she finally forced out between lips that felt as dry as sand. Her pulse throbbed so hard, it shook her whole body. She began to tremble, not to her shame with fear, but with frantic anticipation. “Just like that.”
His eyes darkened in sizzling concentration. Nobody in Bess’s whole life had looked at her with such burning focus. Her breath hitched, and her head swam until all she saw was his face. His lips curled in a smile that made her giddy with longing.
If this was more teasing, she’d never forgive him.
“At last, a right answer.”
“Does that mean…” she stammered, as without conscious command, one hand slid up his arm to shape his shoulder.
“That I’m about to compound all the wickedness you accuse me of by being very wicked indeed? Aye, it does.”
“Oh…” she said faintly, then didn’t speak again because Lord Channing’s lips stole her breath.
This was shatteringly different from the last time he kissed her. That had been a question. This was a conquest. He lashed his arms about her and rolled to the side so they lay face to face. His warmth and masculine scent surrounded her. That rich essence flooded her senses with the promise of excitement and adventure and daring. And home and lifelong sustenance and safety.
She shouldn’t feel safe. After all, he was a pirate and a seducer, and she’d known him less than a week. But none of those good sensible warnings touched her heart. Her heart told her that she was home.
Rory Beaton was her home.
So when his tongue flicked against her lips, she obeyed the silent prompting and parted. He explored her mouth with shocking carnality. She tasted chamomile and raw spirits, delicious when combined with Channing’s distinctive flavor.
When she moved her tongue against his, he growled encouragement. She did it again, and the kiss became an incendiary dance of lips and tongues. A deep pulse pounded in the pit of her stomach, making her feel empty and needy and jumpy. She wriggled to get closer, frantic to ease that hot, painful craving. Every rule she’d lived by tumbled around her like fallen ninepins hit square by the ball. Nothing outside the circle of Channing’s arms mattered. All that mattered was the passion flaring between them, and her need to know more, feel more.
He teased at her lips, nipping and licking and taunting her. She caught on quickly and teased him back until he, the worldly rogue, groaned and gave her more of those long, desperate kisses. As if he perished of thirst in the desert, and only Bess offered sweet, fresh water.
She’d told him he made her feel special. When he kissed her as if the world would end if he stopped, he made her feel like a goddess. How could this be wrong?
Shyly, she buried her hands in his thick, silky hair, holding him close for more kisses. He whispered incoherent Scots words of appreciation against her lips and cheeks. The soft burr of his voice turned her bones to molten syrup. Emboldened she stroked his neck and face, feeling the prickling beginnings of his beard on his jaw. Everything he did, everything he was fascinated her.
He rolled her onto her back and surged over her. His mouth traced paths of fire over her face as she looped her hands across his powerful back. He found a spot where her shoulder curved into her neck. Kisses there made her quake, and when he bit down gently, she cried out and clawed at the fine lawn of his shirt.
He rested on one elbow and bent to take her mouth again. She met him unhesitatingly, sliding her fingers into the curls at his nape. He offered such a banquet of different, delightful textures, she hardly knew where to explore next. Somewhere at the back of her mind lurked the certainty that this glorious interval couldn’t last, that she had to wring every drop from this experience while she could.
His kiss was so overwhelming that she didn’t immediately realize that he’d flicked open the buttons descending from her collar. When air brushed her skin, she drew back to see her bodice gaping over her breasts.
“Channing?” she whispered, more in wonder than protest. She knew she should be frightened, but stronger than fear was instinctive trust.
“Rory,” he muttered, sliding a seeking hand under her shift to claim her breast. His palm was warm and confident on her flesh, and when he rolled her nipple between two fingers, heat seared her. The peak tightened with pleasure that verged on pain.
When he slid the frail covering away, his eyes flared at the sight of her bare breast. “You’re so beautiful, you take my breath away.”
Bess knew she should stop him, but the fire in his eyes held her acquiescent as he took that beaded point between his lips. When he drew on her, she caught his head in her hands, pressing him closer. Heat blasted her, and she writhed against him, begging for more. She’d never felt like this in her life.
He looked up from her breast and kissed her again. When he slowly drew her skirts up, she murmured consent. He meant sin, but right now, the greater sin was abandoning this passion before she reached its destination.
When he touched her between the legs, she bucked with shock. She greeted his fingers with a hot surge, and whimpered with excruciating need. He was so close to where she ached to feel him.
He lifted his head and regarded her with a searching expression that pierced her soul. She was beyond pretending and made no attempt to hide her impatience. She had no truck with pride or prudence. All she wanted was Rory.
“Please?” she whispered with ever
y ounce of longing in her heart. “Please don’t stop.”
For one fraught moment, desire’s clinging web held them captive. Breathlessly she waited for him to proceed, to initiate her into this ultimate mystery. His hands were hard on her hips. His body was big and powerful above hers. His face reflected her unbearable hunger.
Then in the space of a heartbeat, his expression closed and he turned into a stranger. Behind his eyes, shutters slammed down upon all that heat and desire and need.
“Rory?” she asked shakily, cupping his jaw with an unsteady hand. Briefly, he remained motionless under her touch, and she wondered if she’d mistaken his withdrawal. Then he angled his head away and shifted until his body no longer touched hers.
Ice encased her soul as he reached across and tugged her shift over her breast. “Bess, this can’t be. I’m sorry.”
***
As the beautiful unrestrained ardor in Bess’s face faded to hurt bewilderment, Rory’s heart cramped into a hard nut of regret. Regret was a sour taste in his mouth, too, when only seconds ago, all he could taste was Bess Farrar.
“Why did you stop?” she asked, her face pale where before she’d been flushed with pleasure.
Knowing he couldn’t trust himself so close to temptation, he rolled off the bed and stood up. “I had to.”
She pushed into a sitting position. Temper replaced the devastation in her eyes. “Is that so?”
“Aye.” He backed away until his legs hit a chair. He collapsed onto it. Frankly, he wasn’t feeling too steady. “I shouldn’t have let everything get so far.”
“No, you shouldn’t,” she bit out.
Shaking fingers making a mull of the mundane action, she buttoned her bodice. But it was too late. The memory of her breast under his hand would haunt him until he died. He sucked in a jagged breath and battled for composure. And wished this damned hut was the size of Blenheim Palace. Bess remained dangerously within reach, and his honor barely clung by its fingertips.
Rory bowed his head and stared unseeingly at the rough timber floor. Looking at her hurt him.
How he cursed his inconvenient conscience, but he couldn’t argue with its conclusions. Every principle he had recoiled at giving Bess Farrar her first sexual experience in a shabby hut with no promises exchanged.
Mistletoe Wishes Page 23