By Love Unveiled

by Deborah Martin

  He clasped her arm, forcing her to stop, and she pinned him with the kind of threatening glare he was getting used to seeing from her.

  So he let go of her. “He won’t let her come back with you,” he stated baldly. There. It was out. Garett’s pretty little healer was staying in the manor no matter what her thoroughly appealing aunt had to say about it.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He— She— Oh, a pox on’t, he thinks Mina is one of Tearle’s spies. He won’t let her go until he’s sure of her loyalties.”

  Shock lined Tamara’s face. Then she looked as if she might faint.

  Will’s heart sped up. Damn, but she was taking it badly. He’d promised the little miss he’d tell her aunt what had happened—that much he could do without being disloyal to his master. He’d expected Tamara to be furious, to launch into one of her tirades. This deathly pale he hadn’t expected.

  “He hasn’t harmed her,” Will said, putting his arm around her. “You needn’t worry about that.”

  She lifted her eyes to his, their deep brown suddenly so dark with anxiety that a pang shot through him. In that moment, she looked young and oddly vulnerable.

  “Aye, but he will,” she said solemnly. “Especially when he learns—”

  “Learns what?” Will asked, his eyes narrowing.

  Tamara’s expression grew shuttered. “That she’s a virgin. ’Tis like uncloaking the falcon to put her so near his grasp.”

  “My master is no ogre.”

  “Still, he wants to take her innocence. Haven’t you seen how his eyes drink her up whenever he’s about? And she, innocent that she is, can no more resist his pull than he can hers. She’s like the falconer’s lure to him. He means to have her. And now he’s found the way to keep her under his spell.”

  Will drew her closer, encouraged when she didn’t thrust him away. “Have some faith in your niece. When I left, that ‘innocent’ was giving him the roughest side of her tongue. She wouldn’t even let him eat his breakfast in peace! She’s much like you, she is. She’ll not give him an easy time of it.”

  Tamara shook her dark head, clearly unconvinced. “So many other things are part of this, things you don’t know.” She tipped up her chin. “Your master’s not for her. God knows what he might do now that she’s in his care.”

  “Come, love, it’s not so bad as all that.” Wrapping his arms around her, he pressed her head against his chest. “Besides, if you’re right and he means to… er… win her affection, what of it? Consider us. You’ve chipped away at my heart since the day I saw you. Perhaps ’tis the same between them.”

  When Tamara’s body stilled, Will thought he’d touched her heart at last. But when she turned toward him and he glimpsed her scoffing expression, he realized with a sinking heart he’d been too hasty.

  Impatiently she disentangled his arms from about her waist. “You’re as bad as he is, speaking your sweet words.” She frowned at him. “Chip away at your heart indeed! You have no heart, or you’d not let him treat her so. Don’t try to placate me. I shan’t let you two devils ruin us.”

  Normally Will was a patient man, but since he’d begun wooing the thorny Tamara, he’d discovered a great capacity for impatience. He couldn’t shake off her barbed words as he had before.

  “What’s there to ruin?” he muttered. “You’re gypsies. ’Tis not as if you’ve lived like nuns.”

  The instant he saw Tamara’s reaction, he realized he’d erred. Normally she blustered and fumed, mostly for show. But now an emotion akin to hatred flashed in her dark eyes, stunning him.

  “I didn’t mean it, Tamara!” he blurted out.

  But as he reached for her, she slapped his hand away. “Don’t you ever touch me again, William Crashaw. If you do, I promise I’ll cut all the sensitive parts of your body into bits!” Then she stalked off toward Falkham House.

  Will had no choice but to follow her, ruing his words. Somehow he had to convince her not to engage his master in battle. Tamara might be sturdy and brave, but she was no match for his lordship. Will couldn’t bear to watch her lose all in a fight she couldn’t win. Because then there was no telling how she’d react. She might even refuse to let him near her anymore.

  Well, he didn’t intend to let that happen. If he had to annoy his master, so be it, but he wouldn’t let Tamara walk away from him. Not yet.

  * * *

  A few hours later, when the earl entered his study, Marianne slipped into the Falkham House library. It was dim and stuffy, but Garett had left it intact, thank heaven. Then again, that made sense—Father had done little to alter it, so it must be much as it had been when Garett was a boy.

  She scanned the shelves, looking for John Gerard’s Herbal. If she remembered right, Gerard had an excellent explanation of the properties of an herbal mixture she wanted to try on the wounded soldier.

  But another book, its binding intricately embroidered, caught her eye. Her breath stuck in her throat as she drew it out. She opened the volume to read “A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called Loves labors lost. As it was presented before her Highnes this last Christmas. Newly corrected and augmented By W. Shakespere.”

  She paused to savor the familiar title. When the Winchilseas had first moved into Falkham House, she’d read the play often. It had once been her favorite. Its light wit had never ceased to lift her spirits when she’d felt gloomy.

  But that wasn’t the only reason it had fascinated her. With trembling fingers she turned the page and found the faded inscription: “To my son Garett. Continue to greet the world with a light heart even when it seems bleak, and you will never lack for strength. With love, Mother.”

  Marianne’s heart lurched. Until she’d seen the book, she’d forgotten about those lines. Now the memories flooded back. As a girl, she’d wondered about the boy named Garett. His mother’s words had been so much like something her own mother might have said that Marianne had adopted the inscription as if it had been meant for her.

  But it had been meant for a child who’d lost his mother at a much younger age than she. How strange that those early days of dreaming about the unknown boy Garett, whom she’d gently been told had died in the war, had come to this.

  In the imagination of her youth, he’d been a charming, happy lad who’d loved Shakespeare as much as she. That Garett had been mischievous, of course, but good at heart, eager to aid the sick and poor. She’d invented conversations with him about books, about Lydgate… about life itself. It had made the story of his death seem even more tragic.

  In later years, she’d found other books to read, and the boy Garett had receded into the depths of memory. Until now.

  Blindly she stared at the ironic inscription. She’d never imagined another kind of Garett—an aloof man who couldn’t trust and didn’t seem to know how to have a light heart. Last night, when she’d asked him whom he’d killed and for what reasons, she’d learned more about his pain than anything.

  She couldn’t imagine the Garett she now knew ever reading or enjoying the play she held. But had his mother known a different Garett? Just how much had the war ripped from him?

  So lost was she in her ruminations she didn’t hear the door of the library open. Too late she felt the presence of someone else and closed the book, only to have it snatched from her hand.

  Whirling around, she found Garett staring at it with torment in his eyes. Then his gaze grew shuttered. He glanced from the book to her face.

  She felt absurdly like a child caught with her finger in the Sunday pudding, and that angered her. The house and library might now be his, but they’d once been hers.

  Wordlessly he opened the book to find the inscription. As he read it, his expression softened. Then he snapped the book shut and lifted a probing gaze to her face.

  “How—” he began, then paused. “Why did you have this book just now?”

  Of course he would ask her that. And what could she tell him? The truth. “I was looking for books about herbs.”

 
; “Laying aside the fact that you were reading, a pursuit I didn’t imagine was common to gypsies, this book says nothing about herbs.”

  “I like Shakespeare.”

  “That, too, seems an odd interest for a gypsy.”

  “Yes, and I’m glad I pursued it today.” She plunged on, determined to move him to another train of thought. “Or I wouldn’t have seen that inscription. I never thought of you as having a mother. Tell me, my lord, what was she like?”

  A shadow crossed his face. “Why do you wish to know?”

  “It would help me understand how the boy with a ‘light heart’ could grow into the man who’ll stop at nothing for his petty vengeance.”

  Garett stared at her, his face devoid of expression, his eyes two smoldering coals. “In time, my light heart served me ill. Mother was wrong. Only pain makes you strong. And the anger that pain brings.”

  The matter-of-fact words struck her hard. She’d hoped to appeal to the part of him that had once found something to be lighthearted about. How foolish of her to think she could touch the softer parts of him. He had no softer parts.

  Yet she couldn’t forget the inscription. “Your mother seemed to have great hopes for you. No doubt she would have thought such anger beneath you.”

  “No doubt.” His face hardened as he tossed the book atop the shelf. “I don’t want to talk about my mother; I want to talk about you. Why this sudden concern for my feelings and my future?”

  “That should be obvious. Your feelings and future now have a profound influence on mine, whether I like it or no.”

  “So you think you can doctor my anger like you do a disease, and then I’ll set you free? I’m sorry, sweetling, but the cure for my illness won’t come from your hands.” His voice turned fierce. “Nothing will suffice for me except that Tearle be given justice. Even your telling me the truth won’t alter that; it will merely give me more weapons with which to fight him.”

  A lump formed in her throat. “It won’t give you any weapons, for I’ve nothing to confess that could help you destroy Sir Pitney.”

  He searched her face. “Yes, but do you have things to confess to him that might destroy me?”

  “What on earth would that be? You’ve done nothing illegal or even immoral in my presence.” Her eyes narrowed. “Except for holding me prisoner against my will.”

  “You have a choice, a very simple one. Tell me all I wish to know, and you needn’t stay one more minute.”

  “The choice is untenable,” she said in a stiff voice.

  He surprised her then by chuckling. “Why is it that whenever the choice concerns me, you find it ‘untenable’? For a gypsy, you’re amazingly particular. You won’t take my gold, nor my protection, nor even my trust. In fact, there seems to be only one thing you will take from me.”

  “What is that?” The words were out before she could stop them.

  At the bold, searing glance he shot her, a slow heat coursed through her body. She blushed. He took only one step toward her, but it put him agonizingly close.

  “This,” he murmured. Then he bent his head to hers.

  The moment their lips touched, she backed away, but he caught her about the waist, pressing his lean, hard body intimately against her as his mouth, soft and inviting, enveloped hers.

  He didn’t force himself on her. That might have made everything easier. No, he coaxed and teased, tracing the seam of her closed lips with his tongue until she felt weak with longing.

  She pulled her hands up between their bodies, intending to press him away, but he grasped one hand in his and brought it back around until he held it captive behind her back. Then he did the same with the other, until both sets rested on the swell of her bottom.

  Why wasn’t she screaming her outrage? He held her against her will!

  Or did he? She had a sneaking suspicion that if she fought him, he would let her go. Trouble was, she had no desire to fight. The hands laced through hers were so warm that she couldn’t think past the sensations they startled within her. When his thumbs began to caress the backs of each, a trembling began in her nether regions that she could neither understand nor deny.

  Then mercilessly he renewed his assault on her lips. As he tantalized her with kisses, a profound pleasure such as she’d never experienced seeped through her, enriching her blood with a glorious, tingling heat. Desperately, she fought the pleasure, fought the temptation to surrender her mouth totally to his.

  “Open to me, my gypsy princess,” he murmured against her lips, his breath a hot caress. “Let me taste more of your sweet sorcery.”

  The asking undid her. Like a morning glory opening its petals to the sun, she allowed him to plunge his tongue deeply inside her mouth.

  After that, sanity left her. His hands released hers, but she slid her arms about his waist of her own accord. He pressed her back against the bookshelves, and she did nothing except strain eagerly against him.

  He groaned as he felt her compliance. His hands cupped her derriere, pulling her against the full length of his hard body. His mouth made forays to other parts of her, to her closed eyelids, her suddenly sensitive ear, her bared neck.

  Then, while still bombarding her senses with kisses, he moved one hand up to cover her breast. She felt it even through her boned bodice, and the shock of it in such a private place dampened her ardor.

  Heavens, what was she doing? She was behaving like a wanton!

  She tore her lips from his. “Don’t,” she whispered, wrapping her fingers around his wrist in an attempt to pull his hand away.

  His hand moved… but only to the knot of her linen scarf so he could work it loose. “Just this once, sweetling, don’t play the lady with me. I prefer the enchanting gypsy.”

  With a hard swallow, she watched as he pushed the loose ends of the scarf aside, baring the swell of her breasts above the low square neckline of her bodice and chemise. He raked his gaze boldly over the curves revealed to him.

  Her cheeks heated. “I can only be what I am, my lord.” Snatching the ends of the scarf, she attempted to tie them back.

  He brushed her hands aside, silencing her protests so effectively with a kiss that she didn’t at first notice his fingers slip behind her back to tug at the laces of her gown. Only when she felt the bodice loosen did she realize just what liberties he was taking with her. Then his hands reached up to slide the top of her gown and loose chemise off her shoulders and downward.

  Before she could bring her dazed mind around to the task of protesting his insolence, he captured her hand and pressed it hard against his chest. He wore no coat or waistcoat, only a thin holland shirt. Through the material, underneath her palm, she felt the rapid beating of his heart.

  His gaze, like silvershine, pierced her. “What you are,” he said in a low, gravelly voice, “is the first woman to make my heart race in some time. Like it or not, you’re too tempting by half. And I’m not the sort of man who resists temptation.”

  Then he kissed her again with a near-savage eagerness that banished all thought from her mind. His tongue swept her mouth until she felt weak as a newborn kitten. Faint moans of delight sounded in her throat.

  Had those come from her? Oh, but she knew in her heart that they had.

  His hand slipped up again to cup one fully naked breast. At the shocking intimacy of it, she went still as stone. “This isn’t right, my lord,” she protested, though she did nothing to dislodge his hand. What he was doing felt so astonishingly good. Heaven help her.

  “You’ve called me rogue often enough,” he said wickedly as he teased her nipple with the rough pad of his thumb. “Surely you wish me to live up to the name.”

  “Perhaps you should… live up to another of your names,” she stammered as a traitorous intoxication stole through her. “The name of gentleman, perhaps.”

  “You don’t think me much of a gentleman,” he retorted as he caressed her breast. “So you can hardly expect me to behave like one.”

  A shudder of pure pleasure
escaped her, and his eyes gleamed. She scarcely cared. Her control was slipping. His hand cooled her warm flesh, and the sensation that shot through her as he kneaded her breast beneath his palm was like the first relief from summer that a fall wind affords.

  When she swayed against him, he let out a ragged breath. “Oh God, you could send a man into madness.” Then he lowered his lips to hers again, brushing soft kisses first on her mouth, then her neck, and then down the sensitive flesh above her breasts until he found the crest he sought and seized it in his mouth.

  As his tongue flicked over her nipple, she buried her fingers in his wavy hair, holding his head closer to feel more of the exquisite sensations he was provoking. All care for what he might be was temporarily forgotten. Gone were any maidenly objections, any sense of how a lady should behave. She only knew that his caresses and kisses dazed her. She felt sweet and burning and wild all at once, like the gypsy she was supposed to be.

  She should stop this! But as his hand slipped up to caress her other breast and a deep yearning crept through her, forcing her to the brink of oblivion, she could not, or, rather, would not stop him. That vague realization brought with it a teasing feeling of anticipation, which overwhelmed any vestiges of her inborn prudery that might have controlled her actions.

  His mouth left her breast. His eyes locked with hers as he parted her legs with his thigh, then set his foot on a low shelf behind her in such a way that she ended up astride his knee. She ought to protest, but a strange urge to wrap her legs around his thigh and hold on tight assailed her.

  When she gave in to it, he rewarded her with a long, lingering kiss. He worked his knee up and down, rocking her atop it, and the feelings that shot through her were so… Oh, heavens, she’d never felt so eager and hot and… and excited! What was he doing to her?

  Between her legs, she was all damp and aching. And he seemed to know it, too, for he resumed sucking her breast with more urgency, making everything more intense—the heat, the ache… the pleasure.

  Only after he had her gasping and shimmying atop his thigh like some wanton did he bring his foot to the floor so she slid enticingly down his hard thigh to stand on her own two feet again.