Watching as he-oh, God, she could hardly bring herself to even think it-as he had kissed her? Or had she imagined it?
She wrapped her arms around her waist.
Oh, how she prayed that were true. The entire conversation had been insane and so easy to misconstrue. And that kiss!
Even as an unwilling participant, to kiss a man who was not her husband was unthinkable. A sheen of sweat spread over her skin, from the sun or her turbulent emotions, she did not know.
She trailed her fingers through the fountain, rubbed the cool liquid over the back of her neck. Poor, sweet Alexander.
The depth of his grief had stunned her. Through all the years that she had cherished a tender regard for him, he had never indicated by word or deed that he thought of her as anything more than a friend. Had he really asked her to flee the country? Or could she have misconstrued his meaning?
No, the idea was too outrageous, too preposterous, for her to have misunderstood. He had joked that his wits had gone begging, but Leah was inclined to agree with him. He was definitely not himself, and he wasn't thinking clearly.
He was too good a man to suffer so cruelly.
Her father had spawned the misery Alex now endured, but was there a blessing hidden within his cruelty? Had he not intervened so despicably, would she and Alex have married?
How would they have built a life together, knowing, as she knew now, that she truly loved him, not as a wife should love a husband, but as a sister loved a brother?
He deserved so much more than that. He deserved a woman who loved him with depth. With passion. Without reservation.
As she loved Richard. Which brought her thoughts back to her nightmare. Who had stood listening at the door?
Richard? No, she could not conceive it.
He had too much honor. Too much dignity.
The more likely suspect was Rachel. This morning at breakfast, she had offered her friendship, while quietly ripping Leah apart in an oh-so-civilized fashion. Friend or enemy?
The answer seemed obvious, but Leah could not understand it. Why would Rachel hate her? Or did she? Was it all in her imagination? The last few days were a strain on her nerves, she would readily admit it. Everything had happened so swiftly.
Was she overwrought? Had she misinterpreted Rachel's questioning? Had anyone stood in the hall at all?
The warm breeze swirling around her carried the scent of roses, the whir of bees hunting through the blossoms-and the high-pitched squeal of childish laughter? She tilted her head as she listened. It was coming from somewhere off to the right.
Drawn by the sound, she followed the path around a bend, past the formal gardens with their geometrical flower beds to a summerhouse cut into the garden wall. It was covered in ivy, surrounded by roses. A tall oak tree guarded the entrance.
As she approached the door, she saw a blur of motion as someone jumped out of the shadows and shouted, "Boo!"
When her heart stopped pounding and she recovered her wits, Leah found herself staring at a chubby-cheeked cherub about four years old, though her mischievous smile was anything but angelic.
She wore a simple muslin frock with lace trimming high on the neck. She stared back at Leah through unusual eyes, as intense as a field of bluebells, a startling contrast against her fluffy black curls. "Did I frighten you?"
"Indeed you did," Leah said, shivering in not-quite-mock surprise. She knelt to meet the girl eye to eye. She held out her hand, pointed at her palm, as if she were a gypsy woman reading a fortune. "See here. I've lost several inches off my life line."
The urchin traced the line Leah was pointing at with her dirt-streaked fingers, her eyes swiftly filling with huge silver tears. "I'm sorry. I was only playing."
"Oh, dearest, don't cry." Leah wrapped the child's hand in hers. "I was only playing, too. What is your name?"
The child swiped her hands over her cheeks, her tears disappearing as swiftly as they arrived. "I am Lady Alison Wexton," she said, tilting her head at a haughty angle that bore a startling resemblance to Rachel's demeanor, but her giggle was all little-girl softness. "I'm five years old. Well, almost."
"Almost five. My, what a big girl you are," Leah said, a familiar ache rising in her throat.
Her sister's child would be much the same age.
"There you are, Lady Alison." A gray-haired woman with a round face came puffing into the summerhouse. "You gave me quite a fright, running off like that. Do forgive her for disturbing you, madam. She is an impetuous child."
"Think nothing of it," Leah said to the nurse, then turned her attention back to the child.
"I know who you are," Alison said, curling a strand of Leah's golden hair around her finger. "You're my Uncle Richard's new wife. My mama told me all about you"
Leah could well imagine what Rachel had told the child.
"Not only am I your uncle's new wife, but I am your new aunt as well," Leah said, astonished her voice came out so steady, but she'd had too many years to learn how to hide this particular pain, never being allowed to so much as breathe Catherine's name, let alone mention the child. "Would you like to call me Aunt Leah?"
Rachel would most likely object to such an informal ad dress, but it seemed absurd for a child to call her Aunt St. Austin.
"Will you be my friend?" Alison asked, chattering merrily. "I'm to take tea alfresco. That means outside. Will you join me?"
"That is the most wonderful invitation I have received today." Leah laughed, all her troubles momentarily slipping away in the face of this beautiful child.
She took Alison by the hand. "Perhaps afterward, we could play some games and pick some flowers to brighten up your uncle's library."
Chapter Eleven
Richard had important estate business that needed his attention, but instead of poring over ledgers and contracts, he was prowling his library, haunted by visions of Leah and her mincing young fop sitting cozily on the settee together.
His hands curled at the memory, his arms tightening with rigid tension. He hadn't been able to hear their words, but the tender expression of concern on her face had fired a rage within Richard that could only be described as irrational jealousy.
He could think of no other excuse for the vicious thoughts that had swept through his mind. Was she no better than the rest of her sex? Had she thought to cuckold him in his own home?
Cold logic told him his thoughts were extreme. She had done nothing to warrant this suspicion. The boy had only just learned that the woman he loved had married another. Of course, he would be upset. Of course, she would try to comfort him and break it to him gently, but cold logic hadn't stopped Richard from wanting to stomp in there and tear the pup apart.
Only the knowledge that he'd had no excuse for spying on his new wife had finally forced him to walk away.
He wasn't spying, he told himself. The door had been open. He had turned his head as he'd strode down the passage. He couldn't help it if he had seen them together. He rubbed his hands over his face to stifle his groan.
He truly was insane for now he was thinking just like Geoffrey. He needed fresh air to clear his head.
As he opened the window, he caught a flash of movement on the terrace. He brushed aside the sheer muslin under-curtain and craned his neck for a better view.
Leah and Alison strolled hand-in-hand toward the house, each clutching a bouquet of flowers in their free hands. Alison's looked more like a bunch of strangled stalks and broken blooms than anything remotely resembling a flower. Still, she waved it proudly through the air. They grew close enough for him to their voices. Alison talked without pause. Leah ruffled her hair.
They both laughed. Leah's delicately feminine voice mingling with childish giggles caught Richard unprepared, stealing his breath, tempting dangerous thoughts out of their dungeon. And that was before Leah knelt and drew the child into her arms, Alison clinging so tightly, her flowers fell from her hands and lay forgotten on the ground.
Richard's breath froze, the ma
ternal scene spawning a wave of desire unlike anything he had ever known before. Not a physical desire, but a longing to join that happy group.
Mother, father, child ... family.
Foolish, foolish thoughts.
Happy families did not exist, except in the make-believe tales Richard spun out for Alison before tucking her in to sleep.
Reality saddled a child with a mother like Rachel.
Still, how different would Alison's life be if she had Leah for a mother. He saw the genuine affection Leah lavished on Alison, saw it in that hug, saw it reflected in her smile as the two resumed their journey toward the house.
In that moment, Richard knew his children would be blessed with a rare and special gift: their mother's love. On the heels of that thought came a vision of Leah with her belly swollen huge with his child. The picture filled him with pure, male satisfaction and a raw, primal urge to go create that child-now!
Good Lord, the rush of desire took him off guard, leaving him sweating and aching and hard. This was bad, very bad. Married a mere twenty-four hours and already she was disturbing his thoughts, interfering with his work, and making him yearn for a future he knew he could never have because it did not exist.
Rational thought told him to keep his distance.
He had no desire to resurrect long-forgotten dreams.
What was dead was better left buried.
He stomped back to his desk, grabbed his ledger, tried to tally the figures. As the minutes ticked by and an hour passed, the urge to seek her out became unbearable. He wanted to-
Stop thinking about her! He needed to concentrate on these figures. He turned several pages, thumbed back to the beginning, then leapt to his feet and stalked straight to her room.
So much for resolutions about keeping his distance.
He wanted her. He needed her.
And by God, he was going to have her.
After returning Alison to the nursery, Leah headed for her rooms. As she turned the corner in the stairs, she saw Richard standing outside her door, his hand raised, the echo of his knock bouncing off the oak-paneled walls.
A furious rush of color spread over her cheeks as she approached him. She did not speak. Neither did he. The air around them seemed to grow still, silent, charged with tension as his dark gaze inched over her face.
He did not move. He did not so much as touch her, but she felt singed, as if she were standing too close to a fire.
When he lifted his hand and slid his knuckles along her jaw, a moan slipped from her throat. With an answering groan, he dragged her against him, strong hands gripping her hips, clinging fiercely, his mouth claiming hers as he fumbled for the knob.
She clung to him just as fiercely as he pulled her into her room, then kicked the door shut behind him. Trapped between his chest and the wall, his arms framing her face, she was surrounded, with his heat, with his scent, with his powerful presence. She slid her hands through his hair, then around his neck, his skin warm and solid against her fingertips.
Anxious to feel the heat of his body pressed against hers, she pushed his coat over his shoulders, tugged off his cravat. He smiled against her lips and she laughed, and then she shivered as he made quick work of her frock and stays. His hands slid down the length of her legs as he bent to remove her shoes. He was crouched before her, hand wrapped around her ankle. He didn't move for a long, terrible moment. Her breath wheezed in and out of her throat, waiting, needing, wanting him to touch her.
Clutching her shift in his hands, he pushed it up, his breath whispering over her skin as he ran his mouth along the tender flesh near her knee. She gasped, her legs trembling, damp heat building between her thighs. He angled one shoulder between her legs, nudging her knees apart, making room for his hands and his mouth and his tongue. Shuddering noises escaped her throat.
His hair was soft as a feather rubbing against her thighs. He moved ever upward, sending unbearable shivers down her legs. Throat clenching, need building inside her, she tugged on his shirt, urging him to take her into his arms.
A soothing murmur was his only reply, his breath whisper ing over the soft swirl of hair between her thighs. He continued his slow, torturous journey up the length of her body.
Finally he reached her breasts, tongue rubbing slow circles over her nipples before taking one deep in his mouth, torturing her with every pull of his lips, sending an answering tug through her belly and womb until he rose, dragging her shift over her head. His shirt disappeared as he pulled her toward the bed.
His stomach was taut and narrow, bronzed gold in the waning sun. Hair as dark as that on his head covered his chest, swirling ever downward toward his breeches.
When he fumbled with the buttons, she lifted her gaze, caught the wicked smile on his lips, the devilish gleam in his eyes, mere moments before he came down atop her on the bed.
Then there was no space for doubts or thoughts or fears.
There was only this man, moving above her, sliding within her, whispering sinfully wicked words in her ear.
This was hot, bold, desperately yearning.
A swift claiming, passionate heat. She clung to him fiercely, hands biting into his arms as her mouth moved over his shoulders, his throat. Stomach clenching, breasts aching, legs trembling as she wrapped them around his hips, as she pulled him into her body, as tension built toward its unbearable peak, as he shuddered and caught her close to his chest, as he buried his mouth in her hair.
"I love you," she cried against his throat.
He went rigid above her. Not even the rush of his breath reached her ears. The only sounds she could hear were the wild pounding of her blood in her ears and the echo of her words hanging in the sultry, heavy air.
When finally he pushed up on his arms and gazed at her though eyes brutally dark and as cold as granite, even the sound of her own heart beating faded away until nothing remained.
Tendons bulged on his neck. He held his jaw clenched so tightly, she thought it a miracle his teeth didn't crack.
"Never say that again. Do you hear me?"
Leah couldn't speak, lest her shaking voice reveal her growing distress. Her lips tingled.
She pressed them together. She would not cry. She would not disgrace herself more than she already had.
His dark eyes met hers. His features softened. "Leah, I am sorry. I do not want to hurt you." His voice sounded odd, distant, as if ripped from his chest. "I will try to be a good husband to you, but more than that I cannot offer."
His hands dug into her shoulders. "Dammit, do not look at me like that. You are young. You haven't yet learned. Love is a myth, a fantasy, spun out by poets for romantic young girls."
Leah found her voice could pass the knot in her throat, after all. "Please, do not belabor the point. You have made yourself excruciatingly clear. Now, as we have nothing further to say, would you please leave?"
Something flashed in his eyes, something wild and dangerous, like the eyes of a tiger trapped in a cage. "I find there is one other thing," he said, his voice low and dark, scraping over her skin. "You will not entertain gentlemen callers in this house again. Is that clear?"
He shoved himself off the bed. He did not wait for a reply. He did not collect his clothing. He did not look at her again as he stalked through the connecting door to his rooms.
Leah closed her eyes and curled up in a ball on her side.
So much for her dreams of love.
In the morning, he was gone. Called to Yorkshire on emergency estate business, according to a terse note propped on her bedside table. He had signed it simply St. Austin.
That was it. Nothing more.
Such a cold note, so impersonal.
When had he slipped it into her rooms? How had she not heard him? She would have sworn she'd slept not at all last night, as his vehement words swirled through her mind.
Amazingly, she had not wept. Too numb perhaps.
Too shocked. Too filled with grief.
She had even managed to go
about her duties this morning, meeting with the housekeeper to review inventories of linen and plate, with cook to plan the week's menus, with Harris to arrange the refurbishing of her rooms. She'd arranged a delivery to Mrs. Bristoll's, taken tea out-of-doors with Alison, which seemed to be a daily treat, and now she was back in her rooms, writing a letter to her aunt. She longed for a visit, but she feared Emma would see past her facade, which would cause her aunt to worry.
The single candle on her writing table was not proof against the clouds swiftly gathering across the sun. A sudden gust of wind spattered rain across the windows and rattled the shutters. Harsh, wild, and unpredictable, just like Richard.
Leah was glad he was gone. She did not want to see him. She did not want to speak with him. And most of all, she did not want him to touch her. For if he were here right now, she very much doubted she'd be able to resist the powerful attraction that burned between them. Now she truly understood what desire was.
How it could make her sister give herself to the man she loved even without the bonds of matrimony. How it could make Leah love a man, want a man, need a man, who thought himself incapable of loving her back.
What had happened to make him so cynical? What had caused the grim twist of his mouth? The despair that had wracked his voice? The bleak starkness of his eyes that bespoke of so much pain? Had someone hurt him in the past? Hurt him so fiercely, he'd closed off his heart, buried his needs and his emotions, cast away hope, sworn never to love again?
At least, that's what he thought.
Leah thought differently. She loved him. She knew that as surely as her heart beat within her breast, but she would not burden him with the words. He was right. He hadn't really wanted her, hadn't asked for her love. Her despicable father had somehow gulled him into the match. Someday she would learn exactly how her father had managed that. But not now.
Now she had to discover the means to bring her husband back to life and heal his heart. She did not quite know how to go about it, but she had no intention of losing this battle.
A Dangerous Man Page 10