Her Defiant Heart (44 page)

Jenny felt Christian's hands on her thighs. He pressed, lifting her slightly so that it was she who moved around him. "Oh!"

"Oh," he repeated, mocking her softly.

"But—"

Christian wasn't interested in objections, not when the tight warm fist of her body was contracting all around him. "Go ahead, Jenny. You take me."

Jenny moved experimentally, raising and lowering herself slowly, controlling the sensations, measuring the depth of each thrust. She leaned forward. Her hair spilled around her shoulders like a dark curtain. Her breasts were offered to Christian's roaming hands. His knuckles brushed her nipples. As if snapped by a thread of fire, Jenny's hips jerked in reaction and she moaned softly.

"That's it," Christian said tautly as Jenny deepened her thrusts. "Just like that." He kissed her hotly when she bent over him. His hands were like liquid heat on her flesh, massaging her back, caressing her breasts. As she continued to move over him, finding the rhythm that suited her pleasure, Christian's fingers slipped between her thighs and stroked her intimately. He shared her growing excitement, liking the small sounds of desiring he could coax from her.

Jenny raised herself up and looked down at the place where Christian's hand moved against her. Watching him took her breath away. Her back arched, drawing Christian's eyes to the graceful line of her neck and the tautly swollen curves of her breasts. She commanded all of Christian's attention as she abandoned herself to his touch.

Christian heard his name as Jenny's pleasure peaked. He liked hearing her say it. There was a tiny catch between the syllables as she sipped the air. "Oh, Jenny," he said. "Come here." His hands spanned her waist, held her tightly as he twisted, then he was driving into her hard, stroking her until she cried out again and they shared pleasure this time, their senses shattering within moments of each other.

Jenny's breath was ragged, almost as harsh as Christian's. Her hand rested on his chest and beneath her palm she could feel his heart pounding. "I might never move," she said after more than a minute of silence. She wanted to stay precisely where she was, to hold and be held. Christian seemed willing to oblige her. "Never ever."

"It could be awkward." His fingers sifted through the soft, silky strands of her hair. When she turned her head, nuzzling against him, Christian kissed her full on the mouth. The kiss lingered. And lingered. "On the other hand..."

She laughed, turning away so that his lips brushed her cheek. "I should be furious with you," she said, reaching for her robe. She started to sit up, intending to put on the robe, but Christian stopped her.

"Don't bother. I'll only take it off you again." His eyes held hers, making sure she knew he meant it. "We should go to bed."

Jenny let the robe slide through her fingers. "We should."

Once they were in bed, under the covers, and warming each other with the soles of their feet and the palms of their hands, Christian asked Jenny why she should be furious with him.

"You cannot think of a reason?" she asked, quieting in the circle of his embrace.

"I could probably think of several, but I'm not going to list them for you. What if they're reasons you hadn't thought of?"

"There is that," she said dryly. "I should be mad at you for coming in here uninvited. You scared me."

"I apologized for that. I knew you were in here, but when you didn't answer I thought something had happened. I let myself in only to realize that you were in the bath. I could hear you splashing. It was agony waiting for you. I kept thinking about you, what you looked—"

"Good," she said, cutting him off before he was carried away with his own imagination. "You deserved to be tortured."

"I was. Never more so than when you fainted.
That
frightened the hell out of me."

"It was silly. I don't know why it happened."

"You've lost weight. A brisk wind would send you flying. Haven't you been eating?"

"Of course I eat... when I remember."

"I thought so. Mrs. Brandywine will want to fatten you up."

"Mrs. Brandywine?"

"Yes," said Christian. "When you come home with me. She's getting around with only a cane now. The stairs are difficult for her, so we converted the yellow parlor on the first floor into a bedroom. She's still a mother hen, watching over me, wanting to watch over you. She knows I planned to see you tonight, and she knows why."

Jenny's eyes widened. "You told Mrs. Brandywine that you were coming here to... to—"

Christian placed his forefinger across Jenny's lips, silencing her. "To ask you to be my wife."

"Your wife?" Jenny moved away. She sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest. "Christian, I thought you understood. Do you expect me to
live
with you?"

Now Christian sat up, his spine stiff against the headboard. The play of light and shadow made the angles of his face seem more severe than they really were. His confusion was sincere. "You make it sound as pleasant as contracting a disease. I'm talking about marriage, Jenny, not the plague. Of course I expect my wife to live with me."

"And you expect me to be your wife," she said, snapping her fingers. "Just like that."

"What is it that I am not understanding?" he asked, regarding her closely. "There is something."

"Obviously."

"Then please explain it to me."

"The bargain we struck was for me to be your mistress, not your wife."

"And you mean to hold me to that? It makes no sense. I don't believe that is why you are refusing me. What do you have against being my wife?"

Realizing she was coming perilously close to tears, Jenny drew in a careful breath. "Except for the fact that I do not want a husband, I do not have anything against being your wife."

Christian exhaled slowly. "Then it's not me you object to, just marriage."

"I find no fault with marriage," she said, "but it is not for me. As to the other, how could you think I objected to you? That doesn't make any sense, Christian. How can you think that after what we shared?"

"Shared? Did we? Or were we just scratching an itch?"

Jenny looked away, hurt. "You had better leave," she said quietly. "I don't think I want you here any longer."

Christian's heart twisted. "Jenny, you know I didn't mean that."

"Do I?"

Christian leaned toward her, brushing back the heavy lock of hair that had fallen over Jenny's shoulder. He felt her flinch slightly, but his hand remained at her neck, curving around the back of it. She could not avoid his thumb as it passed along the line of her jaw, lifting her face to his. "You know me better than anyone, Jenny, better than anyone's ever known me. You know when I'm hurt, when I'm frightened. Even when I show you anger, you know what lies beneath it. Are you surprised that there are times I want to keep you at a distance, even drive you out? I see myself through the mirror of your eyes, in the reflection of your expression. For all that I need to face my demons, there is no pleasure in being confronted so clearly."

His thumb continued to stroke her jaw. He felt her lean her cheek toward him, unconsciously asking him not to stop the caress. "You were unexpected, and I was unprepared. Almost from the beginning I suspected you were dangerous, but I underestimated your impact. You did not hammer away at me, yet I always knew you were around. So gentle, Jenny. Gentle
and
relentless. Like a spring rain. I couldn't seem to stop you... I didn't always know if I wanted to.

"You made your presence felt in my room, then in my house. I'd ask who put out the fresh flowers in my study and the answer would be Jenny. Who was making old Mrs. Morrisey laugh? Jenny. Where did the new drapes come from? Oh, Jenny found them, someone would say. How did this copy of
the
Herald
get here? Jenny bought it. Who was going to care for Mrs. Brandywine? Jenny would, I was told.

"You were the answer to everything. Until I met you, I never knew anyone so unobtrusive who was also impossible to ignore. I warned you to stay out of my way, and then I was angry when you did. I cursed you for being in my bed, and then I would not let you go. Are you really going to tell me you didn't suspect what was happening?"

"I suspected," she replied, edging toward him. "But it's not the same as knowing. I still don't know, Christian, and I won't say the words for you so you can merely confirm them. I want to hear them from you."

"But I asked you to marry me," he said.

She ignored that. "Say them."

"Jenny," he said softly. "You are without mercy." He caught the sweet fragrance of her hair. "I..."

"Yes?"

"I love you."

She launched herself into his arms, smothering his face with kisses. Her lips touched the corners of his eyes, his mouth. Laughing, she trailed kisses along the underside of his jaw and across his brow. Her mouth brushed his cheeks, his temples, and pressed a smile into the thick softness of his hair.

Christian felt the dampness of her cheeks as she pressed her face to his. He took her gently by the shoulders and drew her back, searching her face. She didn't even try to blink back the tears that welled in her dark eyes. They fell freely, silently, at odds with her tender, serene smile. "Oh, God, Jenny Holland, I love you." Holding her close, he kissed away the tears.

Jenny quieted in Christian's arms. She laid her head against his shoulder and he rocked her. The tears dried up but the smile remained. She closed her eyes, and he kissed her spiky lashes.

"Jenny?"

"Hmm?"

"You're still not going to marry me, are you?"

"No. But that doesn't mean I don't love you. I do, you know. I had a hint it might be so on Christmas Day. Remember? The Turners came to dinner and you played on the floor with Beth and that kitten you bought her."

"I was trying to tell you that I didn't mean those things I said earlier about disliking children and cats... and the other ugly things I hurled at your head."

"I didn't realize that at first. I thought you were doing it to be spiteful. But I kept thinking about it, and it seemed to me that perhaps you didn't know any other way to make amends. I wanted to believe that you were trying to say you were sorry. That was the first inkling I had that I could love you."

Jenny laid her palm on Christian's chest, just above the steady beat of his heart. "I've known it with certainty since the night I went uninvited to your studio. I looked at your paintings, your plans, and I felt something for your work. But when I looked at your sketches from the war I felt something for the artist. It wasn't pity, Christian. No matter what you thought at the time, it was never pity. What I felt was more of a sadness, an ache in my soul that I thought you must share. I knew then that I loved you. I could not have hurt so deeply if I didn't love you."

"But you left me."

She nodded. "It was time," she said simply. "But you found me anyway."

"You didn't make it easy."

"You should not have found me at all," she said. "I am not playing a child's game of hide-and-seek. How did you know I was living here?"

"The
Herald.
I saw the personal columns."

"I see," she said, frowning. She sat up a little straighter, opened her eyes, and swiped at them with the corner of the sheet. "Who else knows?"

"Susan and Scott—because they helped me decipher the Princess's enigmatic messages to Butler. And Joe Means because he brought me round in the carriage when I was first trying to get a glimpse of the man."

"You saw him?" she asked incredulously. "You saw Mr..." She stopped short of giving Reilly's real name. "—Mr. Butler?"

"It's no good, Jenny. I know who he is. His name is Wilton Reilly, and he's the head of staff at the Bennington residence. I know who you are as well, and I can only think that it has everything to do with your reason for not wanting to marry me."

It was all Jenny could do not to push away. She knew he had to have felt her stiffen at his revelation. "What do you mean?"

"Do you really think I care about you being a housemaid?" he asked. "I don't know why you didn't tell me at the outset that you worked for the Benningtons. They are the ones you're afraid of, aren't they? That's why you spun me the tale about working as a companion to old Alice Vanderstell. You were afraid someone might go to the Benningtons and tell them where you were."

Jenny eased herself out of Christian's arms. She couldn't talk to him when she was so close. More correctly, she couldn't lie to him at such close quarters. She tucked the rumpled sheet around her, securing one corner between her breasts. "How did you draw all these conclusions?" she asked, skirting the truth.

Christian stretched, leaning back on his elbows. He appeared more at ease than he really was. It was difficult to watch Jenny and pretend he didn't know she was still spinning tales to him. The trouble was, he didn't know the truth either. In the past two months he and Scott and Susan had tested several theories and found all of them wanting in one way or another. What he had related to Jenny was simply the conclusion they'd agreed was the least objectionable.

"I followed Mr. Reilly when he left you. He—"

"But he's only been here once... eight weeks ago. Do you mean you've known I was here all that time?"