by Margaret Way
Outside her door, they stopped. Royce wasn’t moving away. She stood with her back to the door. “Good night.” She had to rise above this great swell of desire. She had to.
“Good morning, don’t you mean?” he said.
Neither of them moved. How long were they going to stand there? He might have already stripped her of her robe and nightgown, she felt so without the protection of clothes. And something else she had never felt. Voluptuous. She felt like a woman who was truly wanted.
Royce pulled her slowly to him. She had plenty of time to get away. She didn’t even try. She was utterly magnetized.
He slid his elegantly shaped hands inside her robe. There were little callouses on the tips of his fingers that increased the erotic build-up. The shock and the excitement of it took her breath away. Anything could happen. She was allowing it.
“Do you want to go to bed with me?” she whispered, compulsion sweeping over her. She was no longer a woman in control of herself, able to retreat.
“Why, Amelia, I have,” he answered in a low voice. “In my dreams.” He brought up his hands to cup her breasts with exquisite gentleness. His thumbs worked her highly sensitive nipples through the veil of her satin gown. He caught her deep sigh. Her slender body fell against his as though it were impossible for her to stand alone. With one hand, he reached back to open the door behind her. It came open. He drew them both inside.
“This is what you want?” He took her shoulders, looking down into her face.
The question was both challenging and heart-stoppingly tender.
Amelia could only stare up at him. “It is.” There was no blaze of victory in his eyes, only a burning desire to merge that matched hers.
What was the use of denying it, even if she could have cause to regret it? This man could seriously hurt her. Not physically, but emotionally. She knew she was jumping head-first into a fathomless chasm. Yet it didn’t seem to matter. She was quivering all over as she waited for the longed-for touch of his hands on her exposed breasts.
His hands did envelop her breasts as though they cherished her womanliness, allaying in part her desperation.
She allowed him to pick her up and tumble her softly onto the bed.
“Whose room is this?” she whispered.
“It used to be mine,” he said. “That’s why I put you here. I wanted you in my bed.”
“Do you love me at all? Otherwise, what is this storm all about?”
He bent over her, kissed her until she was clutching at the pillows.
“I thought you said I didn’t know what love was?” he gently mocked.
“Do you?” She stared up into his brilliant, dark eyes that seemed to hold enormous delight at the sight of her lying in his bed.
He straightened, giving a slight shrug. “I wish I knew, Amelia.”
She found herself understanding his answer. “I don’t know, either. Is this some form of bondage, do you suppose?”
He laughed as he began to strip the clothes from his lean, darkly tanned body. He was tanned all over, she saw, unable to look away from the splendid male physique so unselfconsciously on display. “I do know you’re perfect to me,” he said, his broad chest expanding with his every movement.
“You mean physically?”
“No room for doubt. As for the rest! I won’t let you leave until we clear a few things up.” He moved over to the bed. “That’s a beautiful nightgown.” Her robe had slipped off unattended. His fingers trailed down her long neck. Her bones were so finely formed. Her skin was satin. Her beauty mesmerized him. “We’ll leave it on for a moment or two.”
To Amelia’s surprise, instead of moving onto the bed beside her, he slipped to his knees. From there, he began to stroke her all over while her body rose and dipped under his exploring hands. She couldn’t control the excitement that was quickly becoming too much to bear. She was drowning in sensation. There was such an ache in her lower body. For a strong man with strong hands, he had an exquisitely delicate touch.
“What about . . . Oliver?” he asked very softly while watching her face.
Her answer came on a whisper. “He’s a good man.” She had moved her body so close to the very edge of the bed, she could easily fall off.
“I’m sure he is.” He bent to kiss the upper contours of her breasts.
“There will only be one man for me.” She had to close her eyes before the tears that threatened started to flow.
“I know that, Amelia.” He rose to his feet, folding her arms above her head. She lay quietly as he lifted her nightgown from her. “God, you’re beautiful!” he said, brushing her hair, as satiny as her gown, off her face. “Beautiful women leave a man powerless.” He said it with a kind of infinite sadness. “Why were you sent to me, Amelia?”
She was aware of the seriousness of his question. She held his eyes, her own full of light. “For this!”
The motion of her long, slender arms was unmistakable. She drew him down onto the bed with her. She felt his weight, the strength of his strong muscles as she ran her hands down his back. She felt his arousal, powerful with need. There were no misunderstandings when their naked bodies came together, only the overwhelming desire to mate.
How was it possible to fall in love at first sight? Amelia thought in a delirium of pleasure.
Giving her heart to Royce Stirling would leave her defenceless.
“What’s the matter?” Momentarily he drew back as though he registered her every thought. “Well?” He held her head in his two hands, searching her eyes.
“Why is it you mean so much to me?” She made it sound as if her question was too big to contemplate alone.
“You think I’ll hurt you?”
She was losing her breath. “You can.”
“We’re not having an affair, Amelia,” he said, as decisive as ever. “It’s far more than that.”
She sucked in her breath sharply as he touched the tender, petal-soft flesh between her thighs, exploring with his fingertips before sliding them gently into her. “How can I deny it? Yet we hardly know one another.”
“Trust me,” he said.
She could do nothing less. If he did turn out to be her enemy, he surely wasn’t now. The feeling of intimacy was a cause for wonder. The nakedness. The madly erotic tingle of skin on skin. Royce fell back into kissing her. Deeper and deeper until every single thought was wiped out by the wildest euphoria. She half-lay on him. He lay on her. She was letting him into her in all sorts of ways. He was moving urgently deeper and deeper inside her. Filling her as she had never been filled before. She had to shut her eyes tight against the explosion of excitement that had her thrashing beneath him. Incredible as it seemed to her, Royce Stirling was her lover.
Was it just a dream he could become her life? Fate had propelled them together.
“Royce. . . . please,” she begged after a while, her womb contracting near painfully, at the mercy of this relentless ecstasy.
Head over heels mad for her, Royce gave a near-tortured sigh. He gloried in the possession of this miraculous woman. He was on fire. He lifted his upper body off her, dipping his head, as he surrendered his seed deep inside her.
Eventually, both lay back, their bodies still shaking from the aftershocks. After tonight, neither of them would be the same again. Neither of them would be able to draw back.
* * *
Normally, she fell asleep within moments of her head hitting the pillow. Only the events of the evening, Melly’s betrayal, played endlessly on her mind like a disc she couldn’t turn off. It was betrayal really. She didn’t deserve it. Melly had to be punished for her disloyalty. She didn’t know exactly how in these moments, but she would find a way. One way did present itself. The Boyds, her family that wasn’t, were very private people. In the old days, she could have cited Melly as the woman responsible for the breakup of her marriage. These days, unfortunately for her, divorce was no longer fault-based.
She had to apply for a divorce certificate. She knew that
. She had to be separated from Jimmy for at least twelve months. No problem there. Jimmy wouldn’t want to fight the divorce. The family would already be getting ready to fight her. She needed a blue-chip divorce lawyer. One wouldn’t be hard to find. The Stirlings were loaded. Everyone knew that.
Her love affair with Jimmy mightn’t have started in heaven, but it was going to end in hell if she didn’t get what she wanted. Life had been cruel to her. Life had pushed her into the Boyd family as an adopted daughter. But the Boyds had already had a daughter. The perfect child.
Melly.
It kept on amazing her how easily people fell under Melly’s spell. She had really wrecked poor, old Jimmy. Even that arrogant bastard Royce had been drawn to her whether he liked it or not. Settling Melly in a bedroom far away from her had been the last straw. She had opened her own bedroom door a crack, in time to see Royce Stirling’s tall, commanding figure carrying Melly away down the corridor of the west wing with his stuck-up aunt closely following him up like she was Melly’s new best friend.
She quickly gathered from the few words that were spoken that Melly had fainted. Serve her right! She knew for a fact Melly had never fainted in her life. How sweet it felt knowing fit-as-a-fiddle Melly had passed out.
She closed the door and went back to her bed, but she was still awake at dawn, her whole body awash with anger and resentments. At least she had dozed off some of the time. Threadbare sleep. She had to get to Melly before the household woke up. She staggered out of bed, grabbed a robe. Maybe Melly had locked herself in? She unlocked her own bedroom door, opening it slightly so she could peer out. That silly bitch Pippa could well be about. Pippa! Another one of Melly’s conquests. Melly made friends endlessly. All she seemed to get was conflict. She had thought as long as Melly was near, she had the most loyal of supporters. Melly had taken to the “sister” thing like some sacred vow. There was great satisfaction in knowing clever Melly had been clay in her hands. There were all kinds of cleverness.
There was no one about. That would have put paid to her efforts. Still, she felt a touch nervous. She padded down the hallway on her small, high-arched feet, pausing for a moment to look over the gallery into the entrance hall below. Who did these people think they were? This wasn’t a house. It was a bloody museum. She knew work on the station began at dawn. She knew pitiful old Jimmy was actually trying to do his bit.
The coast should be clear. Her head was throbbing. She looked sick. She felt sick. All Melly’s fault. All Melly had to say was that she had arrived not long after she had miscarried her and Jimmy’s child. Instead Melly, her rock, had betrayed her with her silence. She had even said she was there for Jimmy. If that wasn’t an admission, what was?
Marigold had caught the expression in Royce Stirling’s darker-than-dark eyes. Melly didn’t know who she was dealing with? The master of all he surveyed no more trusted Melly than her.
She didn’t dare call out in case heads started popping. Very quietly, she tried the brass knob on the bedroom door.
Eureka! Yes!
As silent as a thief, Marigold moved into the bedroom that just had to have belonged to a man. It couldn’t have been more different to the feminine bedrooms she and Melly had been allotted. She looked towards the bed. It was huge by normal standards. She felt she would get lost in the bedsheets, it was so big. Melly was lying on her side, her body turned away, facing the open French door.
“Melly!” she hissed. Melly didn’t stir. She felt like screaming. She tried again. “Melly?”
Amelia sat up with a visible start. “What the—”
Marigold was astounded. “I don’t believe this!” she cried. “You’re naked!” Modest old Melly didn’t appear to have so much as a stitch on.
“For God’s sake, Marigold!” Amelia felt a prickling of anger. She reached for the sheet, pulling it up around her. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing naked?” Marigold shot back, genuinely shocked. She had never seen Melly naked in her entire life. Even getting out of her swimmers, there had always been a towel to hand.
“I was hot,” Amelia said languidly, still lost in euphoria.
“Hot? The bloody place is like a refrigerator at night.” Marigold sounded almost hysterical.
“Would you mind passing me my robe?” Amelia wanted the subject dropped.
“What’s it doing on the floor?” Marigold demanded to know, still sounding outraged and not moving an inch. “Have you got messy all of a sudden?”
“I could never be as messy as you.” Seeing Marigold wasn’t going to help out, Amelia slid out of the bed, making short work of shouldering into her robe. Marigold was staring at her as if she had either grown two heads or three breasts.
She had come briefly awake to feel Royce’s swift kiss before he had left, and then she had fallen back to sleep again. Thank God he hadn’t been lying beside her when Marigold had taken it upon herself to barge in.
Marigold now appeared murderously angry. “I hear you fainted?”
“Why do you make that sound like I near-impaled myself? Have you come to check it out? Ask after my health?” Amelia moved to pick up her hairbrush, running it quickly through her long hair that crackled with electricity.
Marigold’s blue eyes continued to rake over her. “That was a rotten thing you did to me last night. You just switched off all loyalty.”
Amelia tightened the cord around her robe before she turned about. “Talk to Jimmy, Marigold. Don’t keep on lying and lying. I said I would back you if you told him you truly believed you were pregnant and begged for his understanding.”
“What, and sacrifice a huge hunk out of my settlement?” Marigold cried as if Amelia were out of her mind. “I’ll never forget your treachery.”
“While pretending you haven’t done a darn thing wrong? It’s a great pity you can’t recognize your own treachery, Marigold. Jimmy would never have married you had he known the truth. We both know he was desperately unhappy over what he thought happened to his baby. What you told him happened to his baby in your supersensitive way.”
“Impossible to tell him,” Marigold dismissed that suggestion.
“You acted very badly last night,” Amelia reminded her.
“Okay, I freaked out. No need to go on about it.”
“You drink too much, Marigold. It has to stop. It’s not hard to turn into an alcoholic.”
Marigold laughed. “I’d expect that coming from a wowser.” She moved right up to confront the taller Amelia, speaking through clenched teeth. “You weren’t on your own last night, were you?” She grabbed Amelia’s arm, a familiar storm gathering on her small face.
Before Amelia could formulate any sort of an answer, the door opened. Royce’s voice rang out with authority. “Take your hand off Amelia, Marigold.” It was a compelling order.
Only Marigold was burning with barely suppressed violence. She turned to face Royce’s formidable figure. He was fully dressed in his working uniform, the cattleman’s elastic-sided riding boots, jeans, blue denim short-sleeved shirt he somehow made look like a million dollars. “She’s had Jimmy in here. I’m sure of it. Aren’t you shocked?”
Royce’s reply was sardonic. “What shocks me most is the way you’re always attacking Amelia. Aren’t you supposed to love her? I know she’s overprotective of you, which I suppose goes with the territory. You were raised as sisters. To answer your question, I know for a fact James wasn’t here with Amelia.”
“How can you know?” Marigold’s voice soared as she reproached him. “I told you Jimmy was her lover. Don’t you feel the least bit disgusted?”
“I might if I had reason to be,” Royce said. “I suggest you go back to your own bedroom, Marigold. I expect you’ll want to return home as soon as possible.”
“You bet!” Marigold confirmed. “But first, we need to have an important discussion.” Marigold was clearly seeing herself as a woman with new found power. “Melly has been apologizing to me for the way she acted last night
. She wants to tell you all about it.”
Amelia didn’t think she could take much more. Marigold had turned lying into an art form. “Just go, Marigold,” she urged quietly.
Marigold stood there as though she wasn’t about to do any such thing.
“What say we meet in my study around ten-thirty?” Royce suggested, a movement of his tightly muscled arm encouraging Marigold to move.
“I’ll be there.” Marigold jutted her small chin. “So will Melly. I might as well tell you, we’ll be going home together. Melly’s being here for me is a psychological thing.”
“You haven’t considered you might need some counselling?” Royce asked.
“I am under massive pressure,” said Marigold, truly believing that to be the case.
“Breakfast might help,” said Royce. “Come along now. Amelia needs to dress.” His outstretched arm shepherded Marigold to the door.
“I’m going, damn it!” she burst out, crossly. “I’m going.” She hadn’t read His Lordship as a guy easily impressed, yet here he was acting as if Melly was his great favourite.
“Bravo!” said Royce.
It wasn’t a compliment.
Chapter 7
Marigold made an excuse not to go down to breakfast. She requested a tray in her room. Bacon and eggs and all the extras, including chips. Marigold had developed quite a hearty appetite. Fearing she might pile on weight given her small stature, Amelia had once suggested Marigold start the day with fruit.
“Fruit?” Marigold had snorted. “All right for you. You’re a bean pole. I need to keep up my strength.” Marigold always acted as if a big ordeal lay ahead of her.
“I gather there’s a meeting at ten-thirty?” Anthea asked, accepting another cup of tea from Pippa. “Thank you, dear.”
“Another coffee for you, Amelia?” Pippa asked.
“That would be lovely, Pippa.” Amelia smiled up at the housekeeper.