And she had fallen for him. There was no doubt of that. Geoffrey Langston possessed every quality she admired, from kindness and decency to intelligence and a sense of humor. She would have liked him even if she had not found him physically attractive. The fact that he also stirred the long-buried embers of her sexuality and had proved himself more than capable of both fanning those cinders to open flame and quenching the resulting fire made her dilemma that much more profound.
Did she love him, though? They had known each other a scant five weeks, unless one added the days during which he’d been unconscious, which she did not. Was that long enough to know whether they would suit for a lifetime?
“Your silence—and dour expression—do not suggest your answer is going to be a resounding yes,” Geoffrey observed drily, interrupting the whirlwind of her thoughts.
She startled, a little guiltily, wondering how long she’d been debating with herself. And she hadn’t meant to frown. Smoothing her features with a deliberate effort, she said, “It is just… This is very sudden, you must admit.”
“Aye,” he responded, his expression grave. “I suspect I am nearly as surprised as you are. But I realize now that this has been building for some time.”
“I see.” Not that she did see. Not exactly. So much about what he had in mind was utterly opaque to her. She decided to ask the question that was first and foremost in her mind. “Do you still mean to surrender yourself to the army when the harvest is over?”
He ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair and sighed. “No. Now that I know about the traitor, I cannot take the risk of being held as prisoner until the war ends. We both know it could be years. And while I may not ever remember who attacked me and it is even possible the person who did so was not the traitor, if I should eventually discover who betrayed us, I must be free to make the trek to Fort York so I can inform my superiors.”
Laura’s stomach curdled, and she snatched her hand from his. “So you would marry me, but only to keep yourself free to betray me?” she asked, her voice hot with sudden rage.
As though she had slapped him, he flinched. “Is that what you think I would be doing? Betraying you?”
Oh, she was furious now. Positively on fire with it. “How could you not be? If you return to Canada, you will be fighting this war again. Fighting against my country and, by extension, me. I do not hold you responsible for fighting in a war you did not choose, but returning to that war would be your choice. I could never forgive you.”
“Which is why I would resign my commission as soon as I got there,” he said, then added with a rueful shake of his head. “Assuming I am not arrested on the spot for desertion, of course. One way or another, I am done with the British army, and that is true whether you consent to be my wife or not. But I also could not live with myself if I knew the identity of an officer who committed treason and did not relay that information to my commanding officers. Any man who has done that once might do it again, and that is a threat to the safety of people whose well-being I made a vow to safeguard. My duty to them doesn’t end simply because I’ve decided to retire from the business of war.”
Some of Laura’s anger and hurt evaporated, but not all of it. She could understand why he felt as he did. In fact, she would respect him a little less if he felt otherwise. But he was also still straddling the fence. And he was doing it in the most dangerous way possible, taking the risk that he might be charged with desertion in exchange for the slight chance that he might be able to unmask a traitor.
“If you feel that strongly,” she said, “you should leave for Canada now. I will not stop you.”
He scrubbed his face with one hand and shook his head wearily. “I already considered that. But the evidence I have for the existence of a traitor is hearsay, and I have no idea who he might be, except that he must be a senior officer. All the reasons you gave me for not allowing myself to be returned to my regiment still apply, only doubly so. But if you want me to go, then that is what I will do.”
With a sigh, she reached up and framed his face with her hands. His smooth-shaven cheeks were warm. “I don’t want you to go. But I don’t want you to stay and regret that choice. What if you never remember what happened? What if you never learn who betrayed your people? If you don’t, then you will never return, and you will be a deserter. Can you live with that decision and the danger it puts you in for the rest of your life?”
He turned his face into her palm and pressed a kissed there. “I can live with almost anything. It is what I cannot live without that concerns me.”
Joy burgeoned in her chest, but she could not allow her pleasure at his words to overwhelm her conscience. “And what about your family in England? Won’t they suffer, believing you dead?”
A frown touched Geoffrey’s lips. “They will believe it soon enough, regardless of what I do. Given the length of time it takes for messages to cross the Atlantic, I do not see how I can spare them that pain, although after the war is over, I will write to my older brother to let him know I am alive and well.”
Her heart hurt, but she was sure he was correct. Even if he were to turn himself over to the American army today, news of his presumed death would reach English soil before it could be retracted. One way or another, that was a blow his siblings would be forced to endure.
There were other questions to be asked, of course. Other dilemmas to sort out. But those could wait. There was only one she needed him to answer now. “Why?”
“Why?” he echoed in obvious confusion.
“Why do you want to marry me? Why now?” Do you love me? Or do you just feel some sort of obligation because we’ve been intimate?
The care lines around his mouth and eyes relaxed, and he looked as though the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. It was only then that Laura realized how large a burden he’d been carrying these last few weeks. And how much relief he must feel at finally putting them all down. At simply choosing a path.
Leaning down, he brushed a kiss across her lips, as soft and fleeting as the touch of a butterfly’s wing. “I told you that when I woke up, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Today, I understood that is exactly what happened. Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Langston is dead. And you are heaven—the place I never want to leave.”
Chapter Fifteen
Daniel Farnsworth had not, in Geoffrey’s estimation, taken well to the announcement of his mother’s engagement. To be fair, Geoffrey wasn’t certain what bothered the boy more—whom she planned to marry or that she planned to marry at all. It could be both or either, he supposed.
Nevertheless, Geoffrey did his best not to antagonize the young man by presuming any change in their relative status. Daniel was still heir to the Farnsworth’s farm, and Geoffrey was still little more than a hired hand. Once he and Laura were married—a full month from now, and how he was going to survive that interval before making love to her again, he did not know—he and her son would have to come to an accommodation, but there was no reason to force the issue now.
So it came as something of surprise to him when, shortly before noon on Monday, Daniel approached and asked Geoffrey to join him for a walk. With a nod, Geoffrey descended from his ladder, decanted the apples from the sack over his shoulder into the basket, and followed the tall, broad-shouldered youth down the path that led to the main house. After they’d walked far enough to be out earshot of the orchard they’d been picking, Daniel slowed his pace, and Geoffrey fell in alongside. Silence ensued, but Geoffrey held his tongue. He could wait as long as it took for the boy to get up the courage to say whatever was on his mind.
“Why do you want to marry my mother?” the lad finally blurted. His tone a mixture of accusation and bewilderment, as if he could not imagine what could attract a man to her.
Geoffrey strangled his indignation on Laura’s behalf. In addition to being kind, intelligent, and more competent than most field commanders he’d served under, she was objectively a lovely woman. Anyone with a fu
nctional pair of eyes could see that.
But perhaps it was not the boy’s fault he could not imagine why anyone would want to marry his mother or vice versa. Geoffrey was well aware that most lads on the brink of manhood likely did not consider their mothers to be vibrant, sensual beings, even if both of their parents were still living and sharing the marital bed. Although he had no personal experience to draw on, as his mother had died when he’d been quite young, he knew even adult men tended to think of their mothers as paragons of virtue and maternal dedication. But as capable of inspiring a man’s desire and devotion? Or of experiencing such emotions themselves? Definitely not. To Daniel, then, perhaps it made sense to worry that any man who demonstrated a conjugal interest in his mother might have ulterior motives.
So Geoffrey answered the insulting question without heat. “Because I love her.”
Daniel drew up sharply in his tracks and glowered down at Geoffrey. It was a somewhat odd sensation, not only because Geoffrey was accustomed to being taller than most men, but because a seventeen-year-old was interrogating him like a prospective father of the bride. The thought was so preposterous that Geoffrey now had to quash an urge to laugh. “The farm is mine, you know.” The young man’s jaw was set at a pugnacious angle. “You won’t get it by marrying her.”
Geoffrey decided it was time to turn the tables, just a bit. “So you think I asked your mother to marry me because I want the farm?”
“It occurred to me.”
“Then you can rest easy. I have absolutely no interest in becoming a farmer. If I had, I would have asked my father to buy me a plot of land instead of a commission in the British army.”
The youth exhaled heavily, his posture relaxing. “I don’t want her hurt is all. She has suffered a great deal.” He studied Geoffrey’s face with a perplexed intensity. “You really love her.” Not a question, exactly, but not not a question, either.
“I do,” Geoffrey confirmed, his tone solemn.
His future stepson nodded and then swallowed hard. “Do you mean to go back to England?” There was the barest quaver in his voice, and Geoffrey was suddenly reminded of just how young Daniel Farnsworth truly was.
Oh, of course, he never forgot the boy’s chronological age and routinely thought of him as a boy, but it was easy to overlook when standing next to the youth, who had several inches in height and a stone or more in weight on him, that Daniel was not a full-grown man. And he was a not-yet-grown man who had lost his father at a very tender age—Geoffrey understood just how tender, for he’d been about the same age when his mother had died—who was now contemplating the possibility of losing the one person he’d been able to depend upon for his entire life. From Daniel’s point of view, having his mother across the ocean in England would be indistinguishable from her being dead.
No wonder the young man was boiling with emotion.
Geoffrey assumed his calmest, most reassuring expression, the one he used on green soldiers entering their first battle who had no idea what to expect and were terrified, and on the experienced ones going into yet another battle who knew exactly what they were in for and were terrified. “There is nothing for me to go back to England for. At least not for the foreseeable future.”
“Oh.” Daniel seemed to deflate, as if the anger and fear were leaking out of him through a pin-sized hole. “Well, that’s all right, then.” He cleared his throat, and his cheeks flushed. “You…um…you won’t expect me to call you Father, will you?”
“God, no!” he exclaimed. “You can call me Geoffrey. Or even Mr. Langston, if that’s more comfortable for you.” He reached out and placed a gentle hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I have no desire to take your father’s place…in your heart or in your mother’s. I will never be him, and I won’t try.”
Daniel swallowed hard and nodded. “I appreciate that, si—that is, Mr. Langs—uh…” His voice trailed off. “This is going to take some getting used to.”
They stared seriously at each other for a few moments before Geoffrey’s lips twitched. Daniel noticed and broke into a grin. And then they both started laughing. Everything was going to be all right between them, thank God. Things might be a bit awkward for a while, but at least there would be no animosity.
When their laughter had subsided, Daniel clapped Geoffrey on the biceps and said, “Be good to my mother when you go to the house to fetch the lunch basket.”
Perhaps Geoffrey had been wrong. Perhaps they were going to get on splendidly from the outset.
* * *
He’d seen Laura at breakfast this morning, of course, but it had hardly been a satisfying interaction. With the entire household gathered at the table to gobble down a quick meal, they hadn’t been able to do more than exchange a few longing gazes. They wouldn’t have much longer now—Geoffrey gauged he might have twenty minutes before someone would wander down to find out what was taking lunch so long to arrive—but at least they would be alone.
The door to the house was standing open when he arrived, owing no doubt to the fact that the weather was a good deal warmer than it had been for several days. When he reached the threshold, he heard the rhythmic sound of a knife blade striking a wooden a surface, accompanied by a low, musical humming. The melody was not familiar to him, but he guessed from the cadence that it was likely a popular folk tune, rather than a hymn. Not knowing the song, he couldn’t have said whether she was carrying the tune properly, but it didn’t matter. The sound was sweet and delightful and utterly captivating.
Peeking around the open door, he saw that she stood at the dining table, resting one knee on a chair to prop her injured ankle while she sliced a hard sausage into thin, neat rounds on a wooden cutting board. In deference to the balmy day, she had opened her bodice down to just between her breasts and rolled up her sleeves to the elbows. A few tendrils of her dark hair that were too short and wispy to remain confined in her chignon caressed her forehead, temples, and cheeks. She was so beautiful, so desirable, it almost hurt to look at her.
Longing and heat surged through his veins and into other portions of his anatomy. The need to touch her, to kiss her, to fuck her was so sudden and so intense, he was dizzy with it. It was all very well and good to tell her son that he loved her. The truth was more visceral, more elemental than that. And more indecent. The images flashing through his head were positively obscene.
Laura on the bed, her legs open, his face between them. Laura bent over the table she currently worked at, her round arse bare and his cock thrusting into her. Laura straddling him on a kitchen chair, her breasts exposed and plumped by her open bodice, her head thrown back in ecstasy as she rode him.
Hell and damnation, it had been less than a day since they’d lain together, and he was already pilloried by unfulfilled arousal. Had he ever been so utterly captivated, so completely overcome by such an ungovernable mixture of emotional and physical craving for another human being? Surely not. Not even in his youth, when he’d been new to desire and its fulfillment, had he been this…tormented by his needs. This was so outside his experience, he felt as wobbly as a newborn colt trying to find its legs.
Taking a deep breath, he steadied himself and rapped gently on the door to draw her attention. She immediately ceased both her slicing and humming and turned toward him. The joy that blossomed on her face upon seeing him made his chest expand with triumph and pure happiness. This was why he’d been right to turn his back on duty and honor; everyone deserved a glimpse of heaven. Even him.
Laura set down the knife and beamed at him. “I wasn’t expecting to see you until dinner-time.”
He grinned back at her. Her delight was infectious. “Daniel sent me to fetch the lunch basket.”
Her silvery-blue eyes widened beneath raised eyebrows. “Daniel sent you?” She was well aware that her son had not been particularly pleased by their engagement.
“We had a little conversation just now, and I think I’ve convinced him I may have a few redeeming qualities.” Confident his knees wer
e under his control again, Geoffrey strolled from the door to the corner of the table nearest where Laura was working and propped his hip on the surface. “I’m not sure he would have sent me if he had known what I would be thinking right now.”
She tilted her head to one side, her lips quirked at a sly angle. “And what, exactly, are you thinking?”
Leaning down until his mouth nearly touched her ear, he whispered, “About this.” And then, in one swift motion, he scooped her from the chair, fitted her body to his, and kissed her.
Chapter Sixteen
She was wax, and Geoffrey was fire. No, she was snow, and Geoffrey was summer sunshine. He didn’t just melt her; he vaporized her.
His kiss—fierce and honest and greedy—liquefied her bones and made her cling to him like a limpet, desperate to gain purchase against the tide. Heedless of the possibility of an interruption, she wrapped her legs around his hips and reveled in the sensation of his large, warm palms beneath her buttocks. The hard ridge of his arousal pushed against her belly, a sure and solid pressure in contrast to the softness of her own body.
Supporting her weight with apparent ease, he swung her from the chair she’d been half kneeling on and set her down on the table, a few feet away from her workspace. His hips were still cradled between her thighs, and her skirts had somehow gotten pushed up to her knees. Her feet—one booted and one wrapped in tight strips of cloth—dangled, oddly chaste, while his tongue engaged in the most erotically suggestive invasion of her mouth imaginable.
And she loved every second of the assault.
“I know we said we would wait until after the wedding,” he muttered against her lips. “I’ll stop if you say.”
They had agreed they would wait. But that had been yesterday. Back when a month had seemed like a negligible period of time rather than an interminable one. And before she’d remembered that lovemaking was to desire not as eating a meal was to hunger but as smelling freshly baked bread was to appetite.
Sleeping with the Enemy: Lords of Lancashire, Book 4 Page 12