Her Defiant Heart (43 page)

The tears angered her. She hated the weepiness that had become an unwelcome companion of late. She needed to be strong. Instead she felt uncertain, vulnerable, and more often than not, helpless. Jenny was very much afraid she would fail. The treatment room of Jennings Memorial haunted her.

She firmly pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind. Padding barefoot from the dressing room, Jenny turned down the covers on her bed to warm them. She knew she was still too restless to sleep comfortably. In the last two weeks it had become necessary to thoroughly exhaust herself before she could fall asleep. Just as she had on every other night, she hoped that if she reviewed her photographs some solution would come to her. She left her bedchamber and started across the parlor, heading for her darkroom on the opposite side.

Jenny had only traveled a short distance when a movement near the fireplace caught her eye. Her head swiveled in that direction, and she stopped abruptly. Her dark eyes widened when she saw who was standing at one end of the mantel.

Surprise brought a hoarse cry to Jenny's throat.

Chapter 12

The sketchbook under Christian's arm dropped to the floor as he stepped away from the mantel. Loose papers scattered. He didn't notice. His first concern was for Jenny.

"I did not mean to frighten you," he said. His approach was hesitant, cautious. He stopped when Jenny held out her hand, palm up. "I'm, er, I'm sorry. I should not have come in. I realize that now. But there wasn't any answer at the door when I knocked and I was worried, so I used the key the clerk gave me and I... Jenny? Are you all right? Oh, God, Jenny, don't faint. Are you going to fai—"

Christian leaped forward and caught Jenny just before she hit the floor. He didn't make any attempt to carry her into the bedroom. For several minutes he simply held her, enfolding her in the circle of his arms and breathing in the fragrant scent of her hair. "I'm sorry, Jenny," he whispered, rocking her. Soft strands of her hair tickled his mouth as he spoke. "Wake up and you can damn well tell me to go straight to hell."

"Do not swear at me," she said. She couldn't help smiling when Christian's response was to hug her more tightly. Her arms crept around his neck, and she buried her face in the curve of his shoulder. "Are you really here? I'm not dreaming?"

"I am really here." He got to his feet slowly, bringing her with him. His hands supported her back, then gradually drifted to her hips. The curves of her body seemed to be made to fit the angles of his. "Did you dream of me?" he asked. The words were drawn out of him involuntarily. There was a certain awed quality to his voice that would have been understandable had he been a green youth. Christian had not been a green youth since his twelfth year when Mary McCleod invited him into the tack room. Jenny made him feel eleven. His aquamarine eyes caressed her face, finally settling on the rose curve of her lips. "Did you?" he asked again.

"Daydreams," she said. "Night dreams. I couldn't seem to help it."

Her honesty undid him. Her honesty
and
the tip of her tongue, which peeped out to wet her upper lip. Christian's soft groan accompanied the lowering of his head. His mouth pressed its hard outline against Jenny's mouth. He was too starved for the taste of her to begin lightly. It was all he could do to keep from devouring her.

Jenny knew she was not thinking clearly. Christian's presence was never conducive to rational thought, but his kisses turned her on her head. His lips touched the corners of her eyes. She felt him at her temples, her jaw, her neck. His tongue pushed its way into her mouth, tracing the ridge of her teeth, thrusting deeply in an erotic rhythm that drew her closer and shattered the last fragile bastion of her common sense.

She had questions for him. What was he doing here? How had he found her? It was just that at the moment she did not care about the answers.

Jenny's hunger matched Christian's. Her hands slipped beneath the coat he had unbuttoned but not bothered to remove. Her fingers fumbled with his shirt studs, plucking them out so she could feel his warm skin beneath her palms. Her head twisted beneath his and her mouth pressed kisses to the hard line of his jaw. Her teeth nipped his ear lobe, dragging a throaty growl from him that in turn started a frisson of heat in her spine. It was like that. He touched, she responded, then the act of giving and receiving reversed, and they simply reveled in shared desire.

Christian let go of Jenny long enough to shrug out of his coat. When he held her again it was to lift her in his arms. She was everything womanly, yet she was cradled against him like a trusting child. It was then that Christian knew he could not deceive her. She had a right to know exactly what he wanted from her.

Instead of carrying her to the bedroom, Christian walked across the parlor to where the sketchbook had fallen. He set Jenny on the chaise, and when she would have held him by his shirt, he kissed her quickly, hard, and then pried her fingers free. Her dazed, darkening eyes almost made him change his mind. Wanting her made him ache.

"I want you to see these," he said, raising the sketchbook and thrusting it into her hands. It was hard to talk around the tightness in his throat. He gathered the scattered sheets of paper and placed them on top of the book. "These as well. You have to decide if they are enough for a beginning."

Jenny's hands were shaking. She knew what she held.

"It is not my best work," Christian said apologetically as Jenny began to slowly sift through the sketches. "My model... she left me and... and I had to rely on memory. I thought I knew every line and curve of her face, yet there were times—"

Jenny raised her eyes to Christian's anxious ones, cutting him off. "Your memory played you false," she said. "You've made this woman seem beautiful."

"So she is." He was looking at Jenny, not at the sketches in her hands.

"I'm not."

"Not always. But mostly... yes. Yes, you are." His eyes were not cool or dispassionate. They glistened with a transparent veil of tears. "And, Jenny, you saw my sketches from the war... somehow you sensed what they were to me. You knew I believed I would never draw anything beautiful again."

Jenny dropped her head quickly as her cheeks flushed. She continued leafing through the drawings and tried not to think of herself as the model. It was difficult. A part of her could not help but be flattered by the way Christian viewed her.

Christian's work was astonishing for its clarity. The lines were pure, each stroke of his pen deft. He captured her profile in a single line. The eye followed the curve of her face from forehead to chin in one continuous motion. The tilt of her chin suggested a regal bearing. The hint of a dimple at the corner of her mouth suggested a sly cleverness.

Jenny filled the sketchbook in a variety of poses. Christian had captured her amused and bemused. He was uncannily accurate when it came to recreating the emotions that flitted across her face. He caught uncertainty, happiness, confusion, conceit, anger, fear, passion, and joy. Sometimes she stared out from the page, her eyes bright with laughter. In other sketches Christian recalled more solemn times when her eyes expressed thoughtfulness and a certain haunted distance from the casual observer.

Pale washes of color had been added to some of the sketches. The hue in her cheeks was rose, her lips a shade darker. The rich texture of her hair was suggested with colors ranging from cocoa to chestnut. Her complexion was translucent, glowing.

Jenny worried her lower lip as she studied the sketches. They were disturbing because of what they revealed to Jenny about herself. She had not expected to feel this exposed by Christian's work. She wasn't aware that he had watched her so closely or perhaps knew her so well. It was disconcerting to think that he might know more about her character than she knew herself.

Jenny collected the loose pages of drawings, straightened them, and slid them inside the sketchbook. She closed it and laid it aside before she raised her eyes to Christian. His anxiousness was not readily apparent now. He had become guarded in anticipation of her rejection. His cool glance was shuttered, the planes of his face austerely set. His copper-streaked hair reflected the lamplight. The line of his mouth was no longer sensuous; it was grim.

"You don't like them," he said.

"It doesn't matter if I like them or not," she said. "That was never part of the condition I set. But as it happens, I like them very much. Your talent has matured."

Christian relaxed a little. "It is not the portrait you wanted."

"No, it's not. But these sketches are so much more. I don't care about a formal portrait. I never did. I only wanted you to use your gift again."

"I'm going to do the portrait anyway. I want to."

"All right."

"You'll pose for me?"

"Yes."

"It's going to be a nude."

The brief spark of humor in Christian's eyes gave him away. "Liar," Jenny said. "But it wouldn't matter. I would do that for you as well."

"You would?"

"Yes." Jenny slid off the chaise and knelt on the floor in front of Christian. Her arms circled his neck, and she applied just enough pressure at his nape to get him to lower his head. Her lips parted. Her breath caressed his mouth. "You are not going to regret making me your mistress," she whispered.

Christian was regretting that he had not made himself clearer. He no longer wanted a mistress. But as Jenny's soft lips pressed his hungrily, Christian put aside his intentions to ask her to marry him. He would save his proposal for later, when she was lying against him, her body damp, her fragrance musky. At the moment the question of marriage did not seem important. He only wanted to love her.

"Let me take you to bed," he said. His words were spaced around the kisses that Jenny continued to tease him with. Christian's palms slid up and down her back, sometimes coming forward just enough that his thumbs brushed the sensitive undersides of her breasts. For a while the satin wrapper had been cool beneath his hands; now Christian could feel Jenny's heat. Her wanting excited him. "Bed," he said again, his voice husky.

Jenny shook her head. "Right here." Using her foot, she impatiently pushed the low table out of the way. When the carpet was cleared she leaned back, clutching Christian by the shoulders so that he followed her and blanketed her with his body.

"Right here," he said, surrendering. The bed suddenly seemed very far away and quite unnecessary. Christian buried his fingers in Jenny's thick hair, cupping the back of her head. The kiss he leveled on her mouth was almost violent with need. It had been too long an abstinence to go gently now.

Jenny felt the same way. Eagerness made her fingers clumsy as she helped Christian out of his clothes. She laughed uneasily as she realized how apparent it was that she wanted him.

"I'm flattered," Christian said softly, stilling her hands as they made to remove his trousers. He released her wrists, and her hands drifted lower, cupping his erection. "Very flattered."

She smiled. Her eyes were dark, her skin flushed. She felt him tug on the sash of her robe, and the leaf green satin whispered across her flesh as he peeled it away. He kissed the curve of her shoulder as it was exposed. His fingertips stroked her breasts.

Ridding himself of the rest of his clothes, Christian lay on his side and pulled Jenny close. Their legs tangled. He was hard against her belly. His hands cupped her bottom, and she moved against him sinuously while her arms circled his back. He could feel the swollen points of her nipples against his chest.

Jenny rolled onto her back, opening herself to Christian without any prompting. It was she who urged him to take her, and even though she was ready for him, she still gasped at the strength of his first thrust.

Christian held himself motionless inside her. He swore under his breath. "I hurt you."

"No... that is, it's all right." Her eyes pleaded with the ones already distancing themselves from her. She felt him begin to withdraw. Jenny's legs curved around him, stubbornly holding him to her. "Don't you dare leave me, Christian Marshall. I want this. I want you."

He basked in the warmth of her husky voice. "Show me," he said. He slipped his arms under her shoulders, supporting her while he rolled onto his back. Her legs unwound so that she straddled him. His hands drifted over her breasts and rib cage as she slowly sat up. The bemused, startled look in her eyes made him ache all the more. He had forgotten how innocent she really was. "Show me, Jenny."