This Side of Heaven

by Karen Robards

  He sipped his tea and watched her work. The pie sat untouched on his lap.

  “Shall I help you with the pie?” she cooed at last, unable to stand the suspense any longer. Her words were perhaps more acidic than she had intended them to be—the memory of him meekly sipping broth from a spoon held by Hannah Forrester still rankled—but if anything, that should only serve to allay any suspicions that might occur to him.

  “I can manage very well without help, as you well know.”

  “Well, I own I had thought so, but you seemed to appreciate the Widow Forrester’s assistance so much.”

  His eyes narrowed at that, then to Caroline’s annoyance took on what she could only interpret as a distinctly amused gleam. She could have bitten off her tongue; she should not have said so much.

  “Ah, but you and Hannah Forrester are very different kettles of fish,” he said obscurely.

  “And what does that mean?” she demanded, rounding on him, arms akimbo as she thought she recognized an insult. But he merely lifted an eyebrow at her, shook his head, and continued to look amused as he sipped his tea without deigning to answer. After a moment Caroline turned away in a huff.

  “ ’Tis good of Mary to want to make a friend of you. A kind woman, is James’s wife.”

  Caroline, dusting the screen now as she waited for Matt to take a bite of his pie, stiffened at that.

  “And why should we not be friends, pray? Is there something about either of us that would preclude such?” Her eyes had a distinctly militant sparkle as they slewed around to his face. Had he been a prudent man, her expression should have given him pause.

  “You have little enough in common with her, I believe. Mary has led a most sheltered life and is a very virtuous woman.”

  “Are you saying that I am not?” Outrage made her voice quiver.

  Matt looked up from the cup he was in the act of draining, his expression innocently surprised.

  “I meant no comparison at all. But your backgrounds could not be more different.”

  “Indeed!” Her bosom swelled inside the faded green cotton gown she wore for cleaning.

  “In fact, your background is different from that of every woman in the community. Take Hannah Forrester, for example. Now she has never set a foot amiss that I know of. A fine woman, is Hannah Forrester.” The suspicion that he was making sport of her entered Caroline’s head. There was the faintest suggestion of a smirk about his mouth, and his eyes were a vivid blue beneath what she suspected were deliberately lowered lids.

  “Add to that the fact that she is a fine cook and you have sung her praises well.”

  Now that she suspected that he was teasing, she was able to refrain from rising to his bait. Instead, she smiled at him. “Eat your pie.”

  “I will then.” Holding out his empty cup—Caroline was so aquiver with anticipation that she nearly dropped it—he picked up his fork and attacked the pie. The bite he cut off and lifted to his mouth was huge. Agog, Caroline watched as he shoveled it in.

  For a moment only he continued to look exaggeratedly blissful. Then his eyes widened, his face contorted—and he spat the mouthful onto his plate.

  Shocked blue eyes met innocent amber ones. “Is something amiss?” Caroline asked with simulated concern.

  “You—little—vixen!” he said. “You deliberately ruined a perfectly good pie!”

  “I?” She rounded her eyes at him. Inwardly she was laughing so hard that her throat ached from the effort of holding it in, but she managed to preserve her guiltless front.

  “Yes, you! You put salt and God knows what else in it!”

  “You’re being ridiculous! Mistress Forrester made it, not I.”

  “Out of sheer spite!”

  “Spite?”

  “And jealousy!”

  “Jealousy!”

  Their gazes met and clashed. Caroline stuck her nose in the air and prepared to sail from the room. Matt crossed his arms over his chest and glowered—and then the strangest expression flickered over his face. Even as Caroline looked at him, arrested, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he went limp. His head lolled lifelessly back against the pillows.

  “Matt!”

  He didn’t move. His eyes were closed, and he wasn’t breathing. Was he playing her for a fool? Or, dear God, had he perhaps been suffocated by a cherry pit, or poisoned by some mixture of ingredients in the pie?

  “Matt!”

  Alarmed, she stepped closer. Still he didn’t move. And—she was sure of it now—his chest was utterly still.

  “Matt!”

  She swooped down upon him, catching him by the arms and shaking him even as she cried his name.

  Then his eyes opened, his hands clamped over her elbows, and to her shock Caroline found herself turnbling down into his arms. She shrieked and struggled, but before she could free herself he managed to turn at the waist and pin her to the bed. She lay on her back, trapped by his weight and the hands on her arms, her eyes huge with surprise. Then, as he met her gaze with satisfaction plain in his face, she stiffened angrily.

  “Let me up this instant!”

  “Oh, no. You’ve had your sport of me. Now ’tis time to pay the piper, Madam Jealousy.”

  “I am not jealous!”

  “Aren’t you?” He was taunting her to repay her for her trick with the pie. “If I did not know better, I would think you had a care for me, Caroline.”

  “You conceited …” She struggled but could not get free as he held her wrists pinioned on either side of her head. “If you don’t let me up this instant, you’ll be eating cold gruel at every meal until your leg heals!”

  “Aha, she threatens! I’ll not be intimidated, and so I warn you. I won’t let you up until you admit it: you salted that pie because you were jealous!”

  “I was not jealous!” She glared up at him with the tawny ferociousness of a cornered lioness. When he grinned back at her, clearly unconvinced, her temper got the better of her. Turning her head more quickly than he could move to avoid her, she sank her teeth into the wrist nearest her mouth.

  “Yoww!” He let go with one hand even as he hung on with the other. Despite her frantic wriggling Caroline discovered that she could not win free—but she could let fly with a stinging slap.

  Her hand glanced off his scarred cheek with a resounding crack.

  25

  They stared at each other for a long moment as the echo of the slap died away.

  “Now what do you deserve for that, I wonder?” he asked with commendable mildness under the circumstances. As shocked by her action as he was, Caroline was determined not to let it show. She put her chin up at him, difficult as that was when one was lying flat on one’s back, imprisoned by a man’s hard weight.

  “You deserved that!”

  “Aye, I very likely did.” The admission surprised her almost as much as the tone in which it was uttered. He was studying her, his expression grave. Seriousness became him every bit as well as laughter, she discovered. His mouth, unsmiling, was perfectly shaped. His eyes were darker than usual, a deep sea blue, breathtaking in the swarthiness of his face. Since he had not shaved for a fortnight, the stubble on his jaw and chin had grown thick. But instead of obscuring, the blue-black bristles only served to emphasize the hard planes of his face. The classic elegance of his high-carved cheekbones, long, straight nose, and wide brow made a dazzling contrast to the rugged masculinity of his newborn beard. With a plethora of black curls tumbling over his forehead—they needed another trim, she saw, and she felt a strange little ache at the memory of her hands in his hair—he was as handsome as a dark-visaged angel. Gabriel without the horn, Caroline thought, and she shivered.

  At her shiver he stiffened, and her gaze rose to meet his. Blue eyes locked with amber, both dark with guilty knowledge: against her hip Caroline felt the unmistakable rising of male passion, even through the quilt that covered him and her clothing. He was, clearly, even more aware of what was happening to his body than was she. As their eye
s met a hot tide of color rose to stain his cheekbones. His eyes darkened still more.

  So Gabriel had his horn after all. The knowledge seemed to steal the breath from her, and she parted her lips to take in more air.

  Thick black brows twitched together over his eyes. His mouth turned down violently at one corner.

  “May the devil fly away with you, Caroline!” he muttered as if goaded, and then he bent his head. Caroline knew what was coming, knew that he would kiss her, and instead of turning her head aside or whispering “no!” or doing any one of the half dozen things that she knew would win her release, she merely watched, mesmerized, as his mouth descended toward her own.

  She thought that she would die if anything happened to stop that kiss.

  His mouth, warmly seductive, just touched her lips. Caroline closed her eyes, quivering at the wonder of it. Her body, of its own accord, turned into his, seeking the heat and hardness of him with instinctive greed. Her hands, freed now, found their way upward to wrap around his neck. Her head slanted to allow him greater access to her mouth.

  But still he held back, his lips barely grazing the surface of hers. One arm, braced against the mattress, kept his weight from her. She could tell by the rigidity of his muscles beneath her hands that he kept rein on himself with great effort. Head awhirl at the promise his lips had made her and had yet to keep, Caroline forced open her lids. His eyes were just inches above hers, afire with the brilliance of a thousand diamonds, blue as the sky, and burning as they stared down into hers. Their lips were brushing, no more, in the barest butterfly contact. With the whole length of her she could feel him: his body was as hard as iron. Yet his kiss was as gentle as the fluttering touch of a moth.

  “Matt?” It was the merest breath of a question. The muscles of his bare shoulders bunched beneath her hands. He lifted his head so that, when he spoke, his hoarse reply was uttered an inch or so above her mouth.

  “I would not force myself on you, Caroline.”

  It was a battle for her to breathe. Her hands tightened on his shoulders, her nails dug into his smooth flesh. Her heart began a ragged drumbeat that resounded in her ears.

  “No,” she said.

  “No?” He tensed still more. It came to Caroline then that he thought the single word that she had barely managed to get out was a rejection, when it was anything but that.

  “I don’t feel the least—forced.” Her hand slid up the back of his neck to shape his skull beneath the crisp, springy hair. “You—you may kiss me, Matt.”

  A glimmer of a smile quirked his lips, was gone. “With your permission, then,” he said, and lowered his mouth to hers again. The kiss was soft, a brief, sweet salute, but it was enough to send shivers shooting along Caroline’s nerve endings. Her eyes closed, her lips parted in a quest for air—and then, instead of withdrawing as she had thought he meant to do, he was kissing her again, his mouth suddenly fierce.

  His tongue parted her lips still more, slid inside her mouth, took fierce possession. The arm that had held his weight carefully away from her enfolded her instead. He was wrapped around her, the size and strength of him making her the most delicious kind of prisoner, holding her against him while the raging heat of his skin and unyielding hardness of his muscles screamed of the passion that he could no longer deny.

  Even as she tasted him, even as the feel and smell and heat of him combined to make her blood race, a memory was jarred to life. He was not the first man to thrust his tongue inside her mouth; Simon Denker had kissed her so, several times, as payment on account, as he called it, for his self-described generosity in letting her and her father stay on in his house without payment. He had shoved her up against the wall and slammed himself atop her to hold her still and thrust his tongue inside her mouth so that she had wanted to gag, wanted to scream and fight and vomit to rid herself of the offensiveness of his touch. But she had been able to do nothing but endure because, had she totally and completely rejected him as she had longed to do, he would have thrown her and her father out into the street without a second thought. So she had been forced to accept the indignity of unwanted intimacies with him, been forced to let him kiss her and paw her, all the while withholding the ultimate surrender with every iota of guile in her nature while searching, searching for a way of escape.

  But in the end there had been no escape.

  “No!” she shrieked even as Matt’s hand slid over her ribcage, aiming, she knew, for her breast. “No, no, no!”

  Like an animal gone berserk she began to fight, beating at him with her fists, kicking and scratching without regard for any damage she might do him. He had ceased to be Matt for her, ceased to be the one man whose touch she had thought might be able to heal her. Instead she experienced again the horror of Simon Denker.…

  “Whoa, there! Caroline! Caroline, stop it!”

  He was no longer kissing her, no longer holding her as a lover might but rather holding her off as she attacked him with sobbing, spitting fury. Her eyes opened even as her nails raked down his unscarred cheek. The sight of blood beading in the scratches she had inflicted shocked her back into some semblance of sense.

  “What the deuce is the matter with you?” It was a roar. His hands were tight on her upper arms, pinning her once again to the bed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. She shut her eyes to block out the mixed bewilderment and fury in the dear face she had just done an injury to.

  “Sorry!” For a moment his fingers tightened. Then his grip eased. “Caroline, look at me.”

  Briefly she resisted. Then, most unwillingly, she opened her eyes.

  He was frowning, his brows twitched together over those breathtakingly blue eyes as he searched her face. There were three parallel scratches on his cheek, she saw, blood-spotted and angry-looking against his skin. Scratches he had not deserved.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said again, helplessly. In response, his eyes narrowed, and his mouth twitched down at one corner.

  “ ’Tis I who should apologize. I should not have allowed this thing between us to get out of hand.”

  “ ’Twasn’t you—” ’Her voice broke off, strangled by guilt. That he would beg pardon of her after that! The enormity of it made her throat ache.

  “Wasn’t it?” His voice gentled. “What was it, then, Caroline? Or should I ask, rather, who? The man you told me about, the one who wanted you in payment for your rent?”

  26

  She flushed a deep, painful scarlet. There was no need to answer after that. Realization was plain in his eyes.

  “He forced you, didn’t he? Forced you to bed him. That’s what this is all about.”

  Caroline closed her eyes, shuddering. The memories came flooding back, disgusting, horrible memories—and she could no more stem them than she could hold back her tears.

  “I’m so—ashamed,” she whispered, turning her face away as she felt her eyes brim over, The wet saltiness seeped beneath her lashes to trickle down her cheeks unchecked. Above her—she could not, would not, look—she thought she heard him draw in a harsh breath.

  “You’ve no need to be ashamed.” His arms came around her again, tenderly this time. She curled into the hard warmth of them as he eased over onto his back, pulling her with him to cradle her against his chest. “Don’t cry, my poppet. ’Tis no blame attached to you.”

  “You—I—I can’t bear to be touched.” Her face was burrowed against his chest, her hands clutching him as if he was her lifeline in a raging river. She was not sobbing, but weeping silently, her eyes tightly shut, her face awash in tears. “By men, that is. But you—you can touch me and I don’t get sick.…”

  “Just hysterical,” he muttered dryly, and her eyes flew open at that.

  “ ’Tisn’t funny!” she cried, shoving against his chest as she thrust herself into a sitting position. With a grab he caught her hand, barely in time to stop her from scrambling off the bed and fleeing. He held it just tightly enough to keep her beside him.

 
; “Believe me, I am not laughing,” he said, and from the grim set to his mouth she knew that he spoke the truth. With one more halfhearted effort she tried to free herself. When he would not let her go, she didn’t struggle but continued to sit beside him, legs curled beneath her, her hand in his. In truth, she scarcely knew whether or not she wanted to leave him. She ached for his comfort but feared discovering that her revelation had given him a disgust of her. But even if he did not despise her, she despised herself enough for the both of them. She felt despoiled.

  A despairing heaviness settled in her chest as she realized that not even with Matt could she escape the nightmare Simon Denker had thrust upon her.

  “I had best go—there’s supper to prepare, and …”

  “Supper can go hang.” His hand tightened around hers. “Can you tell me what happened? ’Twould do us both good, I think.”

  “Oh, no! I—I can’t talk about it!” Her stomach churned at the thought.

  “Maybe talking about it is what you need to do, to take the hurt away.”

  Caroline stared at him. He was watching her steadily, his fingers entwined with hers. He was bare to the waist, blatantly male with his bristled jaw and heavy muscles and black hair, but neither the sight of him nor the touch of his hand on hers repelled her. On the contrary, she wanted to curl up in his arms and take shelter there, where she knew as well as she knew that the sun would rise in the morning she would be safe forever.

  “I have a stake in this too, you know,” he said softly, and as the sense of that sank in, her eyes widened. Her heart began a queer, almost painful hammering in her chest.

  “You do?”

  He gave her a small, ruefully crooked smile. “You don’t think I go around kissing every female who throws herself in my path, do you? Tell me, Caroline.”

  So she told him, though it nigh tore her apart to do so. Told him about her father lying on the pallet before the tiny fire that was all that they could afford although he shivered constantly with the chill, told him about the meager food with which she had tried to rebuild her father’s strength, eating as little as possible herself as she had saved the lion’s share for him, told him about watching her father die by degrees right before her eyes while knowing herself helpless to save him—and told him, finally, about Simon Denker. Her voice emptied of all emotion as she spoke of that.