Enough for her to understand she wasn’t just falling in lust with Tobias…she was falling in love. And even though he was too stubborn to admit it, he was falling in love with her as well.
A bullfrog released a series of croaks as they slowly stepped apart, its deep baritone matching the hammering thumps inside of Amelia’s chest. She ran her thumb across her lip, savoring the lingering taste of his mouth, a pleasant combination of coffee and lemon. The first time they’d kissed he’d tasted of whiskey and anguish. Now there was no hint of either, and she marveled at the change that had come over him since they’d first met.
She liked to think herself partly responsible, but was not so arrogant as to take all of the acclaim. She may very well have prompted Tobias to pick up his sword, but he had been the one to swing it at his demons. And while there were some that had survived the thrust of his blade, there were many more that had been vanquished.
She only hoped it was enough.
“How long do you think you’ll stay?” she murmured when they resumed walking. Cattails pulled against her skirts, hindering her step as they rounded the head of the lake, but she didn’t mind. A slower pace meant more time with Tobias and as far as Amelia was concerned all night wouldn’t have been enough. Nor would a day, or two, or three.
She didn’t want a week with her tortured Irishman.
She didn’t want a month, or a year.
She wanted a lifetime.
The realization caused her to falter, but thankfully Tobias didn’t seem to notice the small hesitation. He was too busy looking ahead at Aunt Constance who was trying to climb over a log that had fallen across the middle of the path. Her foot was stuck, but before she could fall he moved with lightening quickness and managed to pull her free of the limb’s snarled branches.
“There ye are,” he said, dusting off his hands. “Safe and sound.”
“Thank you, my dear boy. What a dashing gentleman.” With a not-very-subtle wink at Amelia, Aunt Constance took it upon herself to slip her arm through the crook of Tobias’ elbow and patted his hand. “These old bones don’t move quite like they used to, I’m afraid.”
“They move quickly enough when there’s only one scone left at breakfast,” Amelia noted, her mouth twitching as she tried – and failed – not to grin.
Aunt Constance sniffed. “Yes, well, there are always exceptions. Should we turn back, my dears? The sun is close to setting and I wouldn’t want anyone to think I wasn’t taking my duties as chaperone seriously.”
Amelia snuck a glance at Tobias, then looked quickly away as a light blush bloomed across her cheekbones. “You’re right,” she said reluctantly. “It has been a long day of travel for everyone. Perhaps we can resume our walk in the morning?”
“That sounds like a delightful idea,” Aunt Constance exclaimed. “Don’t you think so, Mr. Kent?”
“Aye,” Tobias said gruffly. “Delightful.”
It wasn’t until Amelia laid in bed later that night, staring in vain up at the ceiling as she waited to fall asleep, that she realized Tobias had never answered her question.
In the darkness of Webley Castle a shadow slithered along the walls, cloaked in silence and secrets. In its hand it held a curved knife, its familiar weight as comforting as a newborn babe in a mother’s arms.
The door to Lady Amelia’s bedchamber opened with a quiet whoosh of air. The shadow stepped inside, its blood humming with anticipation as it stood at the foot of the bed and stared down at the young woman sleeping within it.
How innocent she looked. How divine!
But the shadow knew she was neither, and disappointment was a bitter tincture to swallow as he moved to the head of the mattress and lovingly stroked her hair. She stirred slightly, a distressed murmur spilling from her lips, then rolled away from him and was quiet once again.
The shadow moved the knife from one hand to the other as he idly contemplated staining the coverlet red with her blood. One slice of his blade and it would spill from her throat like water from a dam, the scent of it sweeter than anything he’d ever known.
After his first kill he had told himself he would never harm another woman again. And for a while, he hadn’t. But once planted, the urge to see the fear in their eyes as they begged for their meaningless, inconsequential lives had grown and twisted and thrived until it was too large to uproot.
He discovered how much he liked to hear their pleas. How much he enjoyed the feeling of power it gave him to hold their fate in his hands. How much he relished that first slice of steel into soft, pliant skin.
But it was the smell of their blood he loved the most.
A serene smile curved his lips as he stared at the delicate bluish smudges beneath Amelia’s eyes. The smile faded as he remembered what he’d seen. Her arms wrapped around a man in the broad daylight. Her mouth on his neck. His hands on her breasts. Committing their sins out in the open for anyone to witness.
He’d truly thought she was different. He’d thought she was better. But instead she was the worst of them all, having been given all the advantages a lady could hope for…and tossing them aside for a charming grin and a hard cock.
Amelia was a harlot just like all the rest, cursed by the devil to crave temptation of the flesh. And like the rest, she would pay for her sins with blood and pain.
But not tonight.
Sliding the knife into the heavy folds of his cloak, the shadow slipped from the bedchamber as quietly as he’d entered it. He paused in the doorway to cast a long, lingering look over his shoulder. For a moment he felt a small prickling of regret. A tiny pang of remorse. Then his resolve hardened, and his eyes flashed with madness, and he whispered one chilling word.
“Soon.”
Chapter Seventeen
Over the next three weeks, Tobias found himself courting Amelia.
He didn’t know when or how it had started. And he certainly didn’t plan for it to happen. At least not consciously. But that didn’t stop him from leaving a bouquet of wildflowers still damp from the morning dew on her bedside table for when she awoke. Or bringing her a blue hair ribbon from the local village that matched her eyes. Or walking with her hand in hand around the lake. Or kissing her beside the wishing well before dozing in the shade with her head nestled on his lap.
It was the first time he’d been away from London since Hannah’s death, and both the distance and Amelia’s sweet company had combined to soften the scars surrounding his heart and dissolve the bitterness clinging to his soul like barnacles on the underbelly of a ship. He felt better than he had in months. In years, really. And on the day Amelia confessed her feelings for him he was neither tempted to reach for a bottle or run for the nearest door.
Instead he cupped her face in his hands, gently kissed her lips, and murmured, “A ghrá geal.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, tucking a tendril of hair behind his ear. They were standing by the wishing well. It sat in a meadow high on a hill overlooking the sprawling estate. An old compilation of stones and wood, it had been built at the same time as the original castle. Like the castle, it had long since fallen into disrepair, but whereas the manor had been erected on top of the ashes of castle’s crumbling foundation no one had bothered to rebuild the well.
There was still water within it, something Amelia had discovered after she tossed a coin down into its dark depths. An old bucket as well, but the rope had long since frayed and the handle no longer worked.
Still, it was the perfect place for a secret rendezvous, both out of sight of the manor and only a short walk from Aunt Constance’s cottage. She could nap while her niece did whatever she wanted, and everyone was happy.
Even Tobias.
Especially Tobias.
It felt strange, to feel like this after so long. To feel joy again. To feel hope. To feel as though maybe, just maybe, his demons weren’t going to win after all. Without the shadow of The Slasher hanging over his head he was a man freed. Free from doubts and anger, but most important
ly free from the chains of vengeance that had shackled him for far too long.
“My bright love,” he answered. He kissed her again, teeth sinking into her bottom lip before he soothed the bite with his tongue. “A ghrá geal means my bright love. Which is exactly what ye are, Duchess. It’s what you’ve always been.”
The only darkness obscuring their light was the fact that they’d been forced to hide their courtship. To the rest of the household he was Lady Amelia’s personal guard and nothing else. A paid servant no more or less important than a lowly footman, just as the Duchess of Webley had said.
Tobias knew there was no world in which he would ever win the favor of Amelia’s parents. If he wanted to marry her – and he did want to marry her, although he’d yet to ask – it would have to be in secret, something which he’d yet to come to terms with.
Love was not a shameful thing to be kept hidden, and yet that was exactly what they were doing. What they were forced to do, unless Amelia agreed to leave everything and everyone she knew behind. And he would never ask that of her. How could he? How could he demand she exchange her grand country manor for a small one-bedroom flat and her beautiful gowns for simple cotton dresses? If she defied her parents and ran away with him, she would lose so much more than what he could give her.
He knew if he broached the subject she would scoff and tell him he was being ridiculous, but that was only because she had never gone without. Love was all well and good, but there was something to be said for material comforts. And it hurt his pride to know that he couldn’t supply Amelia with the life she’d grown up accustomed to. The life she deserved.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, using her thumb to smooth the deep line between his eyebrows. Turning away, he braced his hands on the edge of the well and expelled a long, pent up breath as he stared down into the bottomless chasm.
“Nothing of importance,” he said vaguely.
She moved beside him, resting her elbows on the stone and cupping her chin in her hands as she peered into the well. “How deep you do you think it is?”
“There’s only one way tae find out, isn’t there?” He wrapped his arms around her waist and picked her up easily, for she weighed no more than a bag of feather down. Kicking her legs and squealing, she grabbed onto his neck as he gave her a light, teasing toss into the air.
“Tobias Kent,” she gasped, “don’t you dare.”
“Ye did run me over with a carriage twice…” He dipped her down towards the opening, his firm grip ensuring she was no more going into the well than he was. But oh how he did enjoy making her squirm.
In more ways than one, he thought with a roguish grin.
“And I’ll run you over again if you throw me in!” she cried, flailing like a cat being held over a bucket of water. Tobias grunted when the heel of her foot came dangerously close to striking his groin.
Bloody hell, his woman was a spitfire.
But he wouldn’t have her any other way.
Hannah had been quiet and shy and tame as a lamb, and he’d loved her for it. On the rare occasions he’d contemplated ever taking another wife, he’d imagined she would be just like his first. Having found perfection once, why would he seek anything different? But Amelia was different.
The two women he’d given his heart to were completely opposite, in both appearance and demeanor. He didn’t know how he could love them both, but he did. In different ways, in different times, he’d fallen in love with two completely different women.
And he was a better man for it.
“It would require quite a bit of effort tae haul you back out again,” he considered thoughtfully. “I think I’ll just kiss ye instead.”
Dipping his head, he proceeded to do just that, and Amelia stopped fighting the moment their lips touched. His hands still encircling her hips, he lowered her slowly down the front of his body, enjoying the tantalizing friction of her soft curves against his hard arousal.
Thus far they’d done everything except make love, always stop just shy of the precipice from which there would be no return. But as Amelia’s fingers knotted in his hair and she kissed him back with a passion that left him breathless, he instinctively sensed the edge of cliff was closer than either of them cared to admit.
In the long shadow cast by the well, on a blanket of green clover, they pushed the boundaries of their desire. Amelia ripped off his shirt and his tawny muscles gleamed in the sun as he flipped up her skirts and yanked down her drawers, nostrils flaring at the delicate scent of her.
She whimpered his name when he tasted her, head thrashing in the grass. With ruthless strokes of his tongue he drove her right to the brink…then took dark, wicked delight in stopping just shy of release to sit back on his haunches. With a mewling cry of frustration she sat up on her elbows, tousled hair spilling across her shoulders in a waterfall of gold silk. Her eyes were heavy, her cheeks flushed, her lips swollen.
“Are you trying to drive me mad on purpose?” she accused.
“Aye,” he said without apology. “Is it working?”
A blonde eyebrow lifted. “Come here,” she said, beckoning him closer with a crook of her finger. When he obeyed – how could he not? – she wrapped sinfully long legs around his torso and used her weight, slight as it was, to flip him onto his back. Intrigued, he cupped his hands behind his head and watched as she struggled to unbutton his trousers, her bottom wiggling delightfully on his thighs.
“Here,” he began, “let me–”
She slapped at his wrist and bared her teeth. “I’ve got it.”
Weren’t virgins supposed to be meek, simpering things who stared up at the ceiling with their legs pressed tightly together? Amelia was neither weak nor simpering, but she was the most seductive creature he’d ever had the pleasure of kissing and his entire body went rigid when she finally managed to open his trousers and used her hot little mouth to trace a fiery path along the black curls that led straight to his cock.
She’d touched him there. Had held his aching bollocks in the palm of her hand and used her small eager fist to drive him wild with lust. But she’d never touched him there with her mouth, and as she took him between her lips Tobias’ eyes fairly rolled into the back of his head.
His hands dug into the clover, tearing it out by its roots as Amelia licked and suckled. Until now, he’d always been able to maintain some level of control. Some measure of self-restraint. But he felt it slipping away like sand through his fingers when she widened her jaw and took all of him, damp tip to swollen base.
“Bluidy hell.” Tobias cursed as he grasped her by the shoulders. Cursed again when he rolled her beneath him and his cock slipped between her thighs and he felt how wet she was. How ready. How close.
“Did I do something wrong?” she said uncertainly. “I only thought, since I liked it when you…well, you know…that you would like it when I–”
“Aye,” he rasped. “I liked it. I liked it too much.”
“Then why did you stop me?”
He gritted his teeth. “Because if I hadn’t, I would not be able tae stop myself.”
Blue eyes luminous, she slid her arm between them and boldly took his cock in her hand, the soft pad of her thumb swirling around the damp crown. “Would that be such a bad thing?” she whispered huskily.
“Amelia…” The woman was going to be the death of him. The muscles in his shoulders bunched and clenched as he fought the urge to take her then and there. To ease his rod into her slick core and satisfy the need burning within him. To finally give them both what they so desperately yearned for. “Ye don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Oh,” she said, a feline smile curving her lips. “I think I have a general idea.” Her eyes darkened. “I want you, Tobias. All of you. Right here” – her hand tightened around his hard, throbbing length – “and now.”
On a groan of surrender Tobias released what remained of his dwindling inhibitions and gave Amelia what she wanted. What they’d both wanted since their
first kiss in a carriage all those weeks ago.
First using his fingers to ensure she was ready to receive him, he kissed her again as they became one inch by exquisite inch. Her nails dug into his back, leaving crescent shaped furrows in his flesh. He nipped her ear, drawing the sensitive lobe between his teeth as, with a final, slow, purposeful thrust, he sheathed himself completely within her.
For a moment they were still. For a moment time itself was still. He gazed fiercely upon her, black eyes dark with possessiveness.
My woman, he thought silently. My love. Mo chroí.
My heart.
Then his hips began to move and she arched her spine to receive him and they were rushing, rushing, rushing towards that brilliant mountain peak they’d glimpsed from a distance but had never reached.
Their hands came together, fingers interlocking as Amelia’s eyes flew open, her lips parted on a gasp, and together they flung themselves over the edge.
A tiny red finch landed on the roof of the well. Head tilting, it studied the two naked lovers entwined in the grass, let out a chirp, and then fluttered away.
Lifting herself up on her elbow, Amelia smiled drowsily as she watched the little bird fly off. Then she fell back onto Tobias, her head settling into the crook of his shoulder as she directed her smile to the clouds floating slowly by overhead. It was a rare summer day without a hint of rain and rich blue sky as far as the eye could see.
A magical day.
A perfect day.
A fated day.
“We should have done that ages ago.” She slanted Tobias a lazy glance out of the corner of her eye. “Why didn’t we do that ages ago? Oh, that’s right.” She flicked his ribcage. “Because you kept jumping from carriages and leaping out of windows.”
Capturing her wrist, he nuzzled the back of her hand before draping her arm across his chest. “If I’d known what ye were when we first met I would have done well tae keep jumping and leaping.”
Her brow arched. “And what am I, pray tell?”
A Dangerous Temptation (Bow Street Brides Book 5) Page 19