by Julia Ross
A third pebble splashed into the water. “Because the best, deepest love can only survive on a foundation of courage and trust?”
“Yes, but I would trust you with my soul.” Heat seared her cheeks. “Though last night I was indeed racked by doubt, I still couldn’t flaunt—I couldn’t! Not with Rachel in the house.”
He laughed. “Not even in secret?”
“Guy, even if I admit that I love you with all my heart, I’m still afraid that the gods may be planning some terrible punishment for such hubris. I can’t really explain it.”
He lifted her hand and pressed it to his lips. “My beautiful Sarah, don’t you know that I came to you last night? Alas, when I discovered where you’d hidden yourself, you were already asleep.”
“You couldn’t have come in,” she said. “I’d have known.”
“Because you and I are tied together now as if bound by Ariadne’s thread? No, I stood staring down at your sleeping face, then crept away to my own lonely bed. It wasn’t easy, but you and I should never come together in confusion and fear. I love you.”
He closed his fingers gently over her palm. Her blood surged in deep waves of desire, even at so simple a contact. She knew she would step blindly from a cliff top, if he held her hand like this and asked her.
“I believe you,” she said, but she released his fingers.
He stood to gaze down into the rushing water. “Rachel and I talked for another hour or two last night. She never once expressed any sorrow for the pain that she’s caused you. She takes it for granted that you’ll always defend her and fight for her happiness.”
“I shall,” Sarah said.
“And so, I suppose, will I.” Guy held out a hand and helped Sarah to her feet. “I wrote this morning to d’Alleville at his family chateau in France—that’s the only address Rachel’s ever had—and sent the letter to Ryder to forward for me. A plea to an absent lover, if he lives, may make a stronger impression if it’s franked at Wyldshay.”
Cold fingers touched her spine. “If he lives? You think Claude d’Alleville may be dead?”
“If he really went to Egypt, I think it very likely. The Nile has a habit of eating Europeans alive. Dysentery, ague, local violence—”
Sarah stared down at their linked fingers. “Yet he anyway ignored all of Rachel’s letters.”
“Not quite. He wrote to her several times after he first returned to France, though all correspondence stopped as soon as he learned she was with child. However, she insists that she knows he still loves her.”
“Though he cannot,” Sarah said. “Not after all this time. Even if he didn’t die in Egypt, he’s proved ten times over that he’s only indifferent.”
“Exactly. In spite of the Blackdown dragon seal on my letter, I have no real hope of ever getting a reply.”
“So what shall we do about Berry?”
Guy released her fingers and strode away a few paces. Sunlight warmed his broad shoulders and glinted in his dark hair.
“That question kept me awake for the best part of the night. Even if we get him back from Moorefield, what then? I can provide funds for Rachel to raise her baby alone, but he’ll still be a bastard, instead of an earl’s son and heir. There’s also the uncertain fate of the countess.”
“Lady Moorefield’s not a helpless child, and we cannot leave a baby in such a cruel household.”
Guy turned to smile dryly at her. “So—unpleasant as His Lordship’s disposition may be—it’s rather fortunate in the circumstances?”
She met his eyes. In spite of her trepidation, she laughed. “Yes, I’ve already thought of that, too. I could never condone tearing a baby from the heart of a loving family.”
Guy held aside a hanging branch. They began to walk back to the house together.
“There’s also the matter of justice to the earl’s brother, illegally excluded from his right to inherit the title, assuming Moorefield never has legitimate sons. As for the countess, I can’t promise to protect her, though I’ll do what I can.”
“How on earth did she pretend to give birth without anyone finding out?”
“I don’t imagine it was that difficult, though I intend to interview the local gossips this afternoon to find out.”
Sarah stopped to look up at him. “So we will recover Berry?”
“I intend to use all the power of my family connections to do so. Thus, while I pursue my more nefarious purposes, you and Rachel will go shopping in Plymouth.”
“Shopping?”
A dark flame flared in his eyes. For a moment she thought he would kiss her. Yet he only smiled.
“Of course,” he said. “If we’re to impress Moorefield with our massed strength, we must arrive in style.”
SARAH watched him ride away. Nameless fears still fluttered like a flock of dark crows, but she was no longer afraid that Guy didn’t truly love her—or that she didn’t truly love him. They had proved it with passion. They had also proved it many times with their unspoken understanding, almost as if they knew each other’s thoughts.
Yet she felt as if they stood on the brink of some great chasm filled with treacherous waters, while only the most fragile of bridges stretched across to the other side.
She turned to go in and met Rachel just stepping outside. She was wearing one of Sarah’s best gowns. Though the dress was neither fashionable nor new and didn’t quite fit, her cousin looked breathtaking. The bright morning sun sparkled on her golden curls. Her blue eyes were as guileless as periwinkles.
“Guy’s gone?”
“Not for long,” Sarah said. “He promises that we’ll get Berry back from Lord Moorefield tomorrow, after we both buy some new clothes.”
“Yes, I’d love a new dress.” Rachel plucked at her skirts. “Your things are so plain, Sarah. Hardly fit to impress a peer of the realm!” She bit her lip as she gazed away down the drive. “He would have married me, you know.”
Sarah gulped down her little rush of pain. “In the house with the chimneys in Hampstead? Guy asked you?”
“Not in so many words, but he would have done. He was in love with me.”
“Of course he was,” Sarah said gently. “But you were already in love with Claude.”
Her cousin’s white fingers dashed away a sudden welling of tears. “I’d have waited for him forever, Sarah, but it was so hard when he never replied to any of my letters. I even had to sell the locket he’d given me. Then all those months in Cooper Street and all the rest of that year after I thought I’d lost our baby. It was terrible! Yet I tried not to distress you, even when it was almost unbearable to carry on alone.”
Sarah caught Rachel’s hand in her own. “Yes, I know, dear. I know. But why did you go to Hampstead?”
“Mrs. Lane had already threatened to evict me, so I couldn’t stay in Cooper Street. Then a kitchen girl at the Three Barrels told me about Knight’s Cottage. Her sister had worked there, and Guy had just given me all that gold. Since I was sure by then that Claude must be in Egypt, what difference did it make where I lived?”
“But when your money ran out again, you went to find Guy?”
Rachel nodded. “What else could I do? Hampstead Heath was miserable in January, and Guy’s townhouse wasn’t hard to find. Though there was the nastiest storm that night. I was soaked to the skin and shivering like a willow leaf. You can’t imagine! Yet I knew that he’d take me in. Then I thought that he deserved something in return, so I went to bed with him.”
“That was your idea?”
“Oh, yes! Did you think it was his?” Rachel glanced down and colored a little. “And it was really very nice, too. After all, he’s very handsome and incredibly caring. You do understand, don’t you?”
Sarah swallowed her mad impulse to laugh. “Yes, I understand.”
“If I’d had a heart left to share, Guy might easily have won it. Yet in that terrible dark winter as I stared at the frost on the windowpanes, I began to fear that Claude might have died. It made me feel a little ma
d. If Guy had asked me to marry him then, I think I might have done—though I never loved him and I never will.”
“But that letter came from Mrs. Siskin, instead. If you were so sure that Guy loved you, weren’t you concerned that you might hurt him very deeply when you left him like that?”
Rachel pulled out one of Sarah’s best handkerchiefs. “No! Because the truth is that though Guy may have thought that he was in love with me, he never knew the real me, not as Claude did.” She tried to stifle her sobs, but they came out in little hiccups. “I made up all kinds of wild stories about myself and never shared anything real. Guy knew that, I think. Yet he gave me jewels anyway, like that bracelet I sent you. Then one day when I was feeling particularly frantic, I made him promise that he’d always take care of me, whatever happened.”
“And he promised?”
“Yes, yes, of course! I insisted he make a solemn vow on his honor. He couldn’t have refused me!”
“But now you’re quite sure that Claude is still alive, after all?”
“Oh, yes! After I found out about Berry, I dreamed about him. The most vivid, startling dream! Then I knew with absolute certainly that Claude lived, after all, and that if I could only recover our baby he’d come for me.”
Hot tears—of pain, of grief, of a kind of terrible compassion—blurred Sarah’s vision as Rachel spun about and rushed back into the house.
GUY rode back to the Rectory across the moor. Granite outcroppings clustered on every rise. The warm afternoon sun shimmered in myriad small puddles, winking like small mirrors lost in the heather. Butterflies danced. Golden flowers crammed the branches of the gorse.
A bright flash of copper almost stopped his heart dead.
A redheaded woman in a cream dress had just disappeared between two of the huge granite stacks.
Guy turned his horse and cantered straight for the rocks, then leaped down and threw his reins over a bush. More gorse bushes crowded against one side of an almost hidden green space, enclosed and private among its rock walls, like an outdoor room with the sky for a ceiling.
Sarah stood on a patch of short turf, her shoulders leaning against the warm stone. She was swinging her bonnet lazily in one hand and staring up at the sky.
“They say that when gorse is out of bloom, kissing’s out of season,” Guy said.
Sarah glanced around to meet his gaze.
Naked desire sizzled in the warm summer air, heady and impetuous.
Bright color washed over her cheeks. “But gorse blooms almost all year.”
“Well, exactly!”
Guy strode up to her, seized her shoulders in both hands, and kissed her. Her lips parted and her tongue met his. He kissed her with blazing fervor, a frantic, pulsing ardor, as if he might yet be called away on crusade and be forced to leave his true love forever. Yet Sarah kissed back with mad abandon, as if by her absolute surrender she could convince him just how much she loved him.
They came up for air, breathless, and Guy gazed down into her eyes. “No more doubts, sweetheart?”
She touched his cheek. “No, Guy. No more doubts.”
Hot need coursed through his veins. He slipped his hands to her waist and pulled her close against his body.
“Then let’s pledge our sacred sacrament. Right here. Right now.”
Her face flaming, Sarah glanced about. The lichen-streaked rocks trapped the sunshine like champagne in a glass. Bright golden gorse bloomed. The blue sky soared. His horse snatched at blades of grass. They were completely private.
She laughed and shook her head. “We can’t,” she said. “Not here!”
“Yes, we can. No more doubts.”
Guy stepped back to peel off his jacket and waistcoat. He tossed them aside, then slipped his braces from his shoulders. His riding breeches sagged a little to settle loosely on his hips. Pleasure fired through his blood, throbbing into his erection.
Sarah stared at him, her face on fire, her eyes fierce and wide.
“We can’t, Guy!” she said again. “Not here!”
He laughed and tugged off his cravat, then pulled his shirt from his waistband to pull it away over his head. Her gaze caressed his naked flesh. The shirt dropped from his fingers.
Guy stepped closer, pinning Sarah against the rock. Her blush stained her neck and the tops of her ears. Intimate. Passionate. As if he touched her.
“God, sweetheart!” His voice was already husky, whispering in her ear. “It’s been over twenty-four hours. No one will find us here. You don’t even need to get undressed.”
He stroked gentle fingers over her nape and the base of her throat, then teased the tip of one breast through her dress with his thumb.
“I can’t—” She gasped. “Ah, dear God! No, Guy, I can’t deny you!”
His blood flamed, his pulse thundered. His arousal strained against the flap of his breeches. He pinched her nipples a little harder, following the depth of her response, knowing in his soul the intensity of her pleasure and exactly how to heighten it.
Sarah sighed and shivered. She closed her eyes.
Beloved, beloved, how could I ever deny you?
As he kissed her again, she slipped her hands around his waist, then ran her hands up and down his naked back. His flesh was sun-hot, ardor-hot beneath her palms. Firm muscles arced smoothly from his spine, then softened into vulnerable little hollows beside his taut belly.
Guy broke the kiss, tipped his head back, and swallowed hard as she ran her fingers around his waistband.
“What exactly do you have in mind?” she asked softly.
Reckless, headstrong, he dropped his chin to grin at her. “Turn around,” he said.
Reckless, trusting, Sarah did so.
He bent her forward over a little ledge of rock and lifted her skirts to her waist. With both hands he stroked her bare thighs and kneaded her bottom, then he knelt on the short turf to follow his hands with his mouth.
Desire pooled and throbbed. Giddy with pleasure, she spread her legs further. Kissing and licking, he brought her to the brink of explosion, until she sagged forward helplessly against the rocks.
She was swollen and open, desperate for him, when he stood at last and dropped the flap of his breeches to slide his erection deep inside her body. Gratification rushed and flooded, intense and liquid.
His palms cupped her breasts, supporting her, while his thumbs flicked over her nipples.
Sarah surrendered, body and soul, in absolute trust.
Guy murmured in her ear as they made love beneath the blue heaven. She didn’t know what he said. Words of love? Wicked sins? Promises? Vows? She didn’t care. Breathless and enchanted, she climaxed again and again.
She was already satiated and helpless when he suddenly stopped moving, pinning her to stillness with both hands now on her hips.
They stood locked together for a moment in silence, all consciousness centered on the overwhelming sensations. Warm sunshine, rough granite, her legs sprawled apart, his black boots planted between them, and the intimate joining of their bodies.
“I don’t suppose,” he said, panting a little, “that you’re wearing your little sponge?”
Sarah shook her head. “No, no! But it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Yes,” he said. “Alas, sweetheart, yes, it might.”
So he would protect her from the most scandalous consequences of their love, even now!
He kissed her bent nape, and withdrew slowly, slowly. Bereft, suddenly shy, Sarah dropped her skirts to her ankles and turned around. Her legs trembled. Her belly ached with pleasure.
Dark hair fell damply over his forehead. His eyes were wild and ecstatic. He was still erect, throbbing with unfulfilled arousal. Desperately, she wanted to help him, use her hands and her mouth on him, just as he had brought pleasure to her.
Guy stroked the wild tangles back from her forehead, then began to turn away. His erection brushed against her skirts.
“No,” she said. She caught him around the waist with
both hands. “Let it be my turn now.” Intense pleasure fired through his blood as she stroked her fingers tentatively over his naked flesh. “You will show me how?”
He gazed down into her eyes for a moment, before he laughed a little, then nodded.
She smiled back, shy and hot and eager. “I want everything to be equal between us, Guy—”
He stopped her words with his mouth, then murmured in her ear, his very soul on fire with excitement.
“If you truly mean it, my love, this is hardly the moment for conversation.”
Sarah met his gaze and laughed as she sank with him onto the short turf. Fired with desire Guy sprawled back against the rock, while she knelt over him to explore the ultimate wonder of his ardor for her.
His moans filled his ears. His excitement built again into a white-hot intensity. It was the strangest of surrenders, to allow her to touch him and lick him, to be the passive partner abandoning his body to her hot exploration.
Tentative, bashful, she pleasured him as he had so often done for her. His glans throbbed with a life of its own. His pulse thundered. All thought dissolved in the face of such intense pleasure.
She glanced up—her eyes euphoric, dark and hot beneath her lashes. His heart swelled. With a choked groan, Guy lifted her to press his open mouth over hers—musk and salt and sweetness. Yet her fingers still palpated, and his head fell back, the kiss broken, consciousness fled, as he climaxed in her hand with blinding power.
Her fingers slipped away. Sarah chortled from pure bliss. His rapturous laughter joined in, swallowing his whispered sounds—both formless and heartfelt.
Still giggling, she collapsed to stretch out beside him on the grass.
Sunshine beat hotly through her closed eyelids, staining her world scarlet. Soft sounds betrayed that he was gathering his clothes and shrugging into his shirt.
Overwhelmed, Sarah drifted, almost on the edge of sleep, until she felt the cool touch of his shadow once again and knew that he was standing over her, shading her from the sun.