In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster (45 page)

So had Jeremy.

And she was perfectly certain that neither of them was going to change back, no matter what anyone thought.

Reaching the door, she opened it, stepped into the corridor, closed the door behind her, then exhaled through her teeth, her frustration escaping in a long hiss.

She’d had to leave — before she’d told them exactly what she thought of having to compete with some musty old tome for Jeremy’s attention. “Huh!” Head lowering, brows drawn down in a distinctly black frown, she stalked off.

If she recalled aright, there was a way up to the battlements; she would find it and sit down in the breeze until she calmed down.

Then she would take a leaf out of Jeremy’s book, consider her options, and make a plan.

It was their new selves, their changed selves, that fit so well together.

That night, after they’d all retired to their rooms and the castle had quieted beneath the blanket of the night, Eliza stood before an open window looking out at the dark panorama of the Cheviots, and, once again, retrod the line of logic that held her there — looking out at the night, the fingers of one hand locked around the rose quartz pendant lying between her breasts, her white poplin nightgown ruffling gently in the breeze, with her feet firmly planted.

She wasn’t going to go to Jeremy’s room tonight.

She couldn’t.

Because she couldn’t push.

Because, courtesy of the revelation that had come to her on the battlements that afternoon, she’d realized that she had to wait for him to make up his own mind.

She’d fallen in love not with the scholar but with the man he’d shown himself to be during their flight through the lowlands. That was the man who had captured her heart, and she was perfectly certain that the she he’d come to love enough to protect with his life was the lady who’d sat beside him in the gig as they’d rocketed along the lanes on the other side of the Cheviots.

He had to decide whether or not he intended to remain the man he’d become through their reckless flight, or whether he wished to revert to his earlier self, the scholar and nothing more.

For herself, she’d already made her decision. The life she could live as her new self, in her new incarnation, was so much more enthralling and exhilarating than the life she would have lived as her previous self. She would embrace her new self, her new life, her new purpose, and accept whatever risks might come.

But she couldn’t make that decision for Jeremy any more than he could have made the decision for her.

And them seizing their love with both hands was, would be, the equivalent of seizing and holding on to their altered selves, because it was those newfound selves who had fallen in love.

The pressure of the others’ views, of their lack of comprehension, was pushing them back to their old selves, to being the lesser people they’d previously been. But their new selves were so much more, promised so much more.

So she had to give Jeremy time.

Impatience pricked, a spur sharpened by a hunger she’d felt for no other man, but caring for a man came in many guises, and in this instance keeping her distance was the right thing to do. She’d considered her options and made her plan — a simple, direct, effective plan. Having made her decision, she now stood poised to put it into action.

The instant he made a move — any move that told her clearly that he wanted to go forward, hand in hand with her, and claim the love they already shared — then she would step up to stand beside him so they could take the next step together.

She didn’t need to think any further than that. All she had to do now was wait.

Wait for him to realize that her heart was his, already his, now and forever more.

And that in the same vein, his was hers.

ith the curtains drawn against the night, Jeremy, still fully clothed, paced back and forth before the empty hearth in his room. Rehearsing his arguments, reaffirming his facts, his conclusions.

That nothing had occurred to jolt the others — Martin, Celia, Tristan, Leonora, Royce, and Minerva — from the apparently universal view of his and Eliza’s pending relationship had been amply demonstrated over dinner and the two hours following; he’d spent most of the latter in the billiard room, trying to keep the conversation away from that subject so he wouldn’t react, wouldn’t lose his temper and make rash statements — statements he had yet to verify with Eliza.

But they were going to get to the bedrock of it, him and her, together, tonight, just as soon as she arrived in his room.

He’d seen enough, sensed enough of her reaction to the others’ blindness, to feel reasonably confident that her view of him and her closely aligned with his own. He hadn’t missed her reaction on the ridge when he’d been shot, either, nor had he forgotten her refusal to let him push her behind him when Scrope had leveled the second pistol on them.

From experience with Leonora, he knew females could be every bit as protective of males they cared for as those males might be of them. Protectiveness was one instinct that had no gender restriction.

Of course, there was a significant difference between “caring for” and “loving,” which was the single point he needed to clarify.

How?
was the question that had him pacing.

One thing was certain: the time for beating about the bush was past. They needed to decide, tonight, just what sort of future they wanted together, and then tomorrow they needed to set everyone else straight.

So … how to learn the answer to his one crucial question?

Sadly, there seemed no easy, let alone subtle, way forward. He was going to have to simply ask. But
Do you love me?
sounded rather abrupt. Not to mention desperate.

Halting, he ran both hands through his hair. “If there’s a standard wording for a betrothal notice, why isn’t there some well-worn, equally well-established phrase for inquiring if a lady loves you?”

No answer came. Instead, the clocks throughout the huge house pealed the hour — twelve bongs, tings, chimes ….

“Twelve?” Startled, he swung to the door. “She’s usually here by now.”

On the past two nights, Eliza had arrived well before midnight.

He narrowed his eyes. Set his jaw. “No.” He stalked to the door. “No. No. And no. We are not enduring another day in this unresolved state.”

Flinging open the door, he stepped into the corridor, caught the door, and pulled it shut behind him. After a moment mentally orienting himself and recalling which corridor led to Eliza’s room — she’d mentioned its location when she’d rushed into his room last night — he stalked off.

To have the discussion they had to have. Now. Tonight.

People thought scholars were patient souls, and with respect to their studies they usually were. On all other matters, particularly over anything that got in their way, they tended to be not just impatient but also irascible, testy, and distinctly intolerant. Such were the traits of a scholar.

He was a scholar to his soul, and the state of unknowing, of uncertainty, of not having everything settled and decided was driving him insane.

As he crossed the shadowed gallery and started down the corridor to Eliza’s room, the question of why she hadn’t come to his room rose in his mind ….

He swatted it aside. If there was a reason, she would tell him. Most likely the others’ foolishness had made her wonder … something like that.

Reaching her door, he tapped. Without waiting for any answer, he turned the knob and stepped inside.

No candle burned, but his eyes had already adjusted to the night; he saw the mound in the bed shift, then Eliza sat bolt upright, peering across the room. “Jeremy?”

He shut the door and advanced on the bed. “We need to talk.”

She nodded; although the light was poor, he thought she nodded eagerly. “Yes. We do.” Curling her legs beneath the covers, she looked up at him.

Plainly encouraging.

Just to check, and because some semblance of manners was pricking at him, halting beside the bed, he asked, “You don’t mind?”

“No.” After an instant’s pause, she added, “I’m glad you came.”

Swinging up to kneel, she walked on her knees to the edge of the bed, reached out, gripped his lapels, and drew him nearer, until his legs hit the side of the bed.

Curling his hands about hers, he said, “We need to talk about you and me.” He looked down at her, at the delicate face turned up to his. “About us, and the life we’ll have together — about what we want it to be like.”

She’d left the curtains open; silver moonlight washed through the room, providing enough light to, at close quarters, see each other’s features, to see the directness and feel the warmth in each other’s gazes.

He hadn’t thought of exactly what to say — hadn’t stumbled on any neat phrase that would lead her to reveal what he wanted to know. Looking into her face, searching, hunting for inspiration, he reached deep within and found the words waiting.

He’d wanted to ask,
Do you love me?

Instead, he said, “I love you.” His hands tightened on hers. He’d sunk so deeply into her eyes he felt like he was drowning. But the scholar in him was still there. “At least … I think I do. I’ve never felt this way for any other woman.” He felt his lips curve even though he didn’t feel like smiling. “It’s as if, to me, to my senses, you are the personification of the most fabulous hieroglyphic manuscript ever created — you hold my attention, my interest … I want to know every little thing about you, every curlicue, every quirk, every subtle nuance. I value and revere every little thing that makes you you, and I feel a burning need to treat you as my most precious treasure, to behave in every way as if you are.”

Raising one of her hands to his lips, his eyes locked with hers, he kissed her fingers. “So I think, yes, that it must be love — that I love you. What else could this enthralling, compulsive fascination be?”

She searched his eyes, her own now alight, her face already rapturously glowing, then she laughed, lightly, gloriously, and the joyous sound shook him to his soul.

“Only you could describe it so clearly.” Head tilting, her eyes on his face, locking again with his, she said, clearly, straightforwardly, simply, “Which is one of the reasons why I love you.” Sliding one hand from beneath his, she laid her palm to his cheek. “And I’m very sure that it is love I feel, because I’ve been searching for you, hunting high and low, for what seems like forever. All through the ton, but I never met you there … or, at least …”

“You never met the me I now am there. You only met the absentminded scholar.” He paused, then went on, “I’ve changed. This journey — your abduction, the rescue, and our flight — has changed me.”

“And it’s changed me — I feel like a different woman. I know myself now, and feel confident in so many ways I never did before.”

“Before, we met as the people we were. Now … we’re the people we were meant to be, that we always had it in us to be.”

“You feel that, too? That it’s the people we now are who’ve fallen in love?”

“Yes.” He grimaced. “But sadly no one else seems to see the changes.”

She gestured dismissively. “They don’t matter. In this, only we do. This is our truth, our reality. It’s who we really are, and who we want to be. It’s how we want to live from now on — and that’s all that truly matters.”

For a moment, he held her gaze, then he released her hands and reached for her. “I’m glad you feel that way. Together we can be the people we wish to be, and what the rest of our world thinks will be irrelevant.”

His hands slid about her waist; feeling them firm and urge her to him, Eliza went gladly, shifting forward to lean into him. Raising her arms, she wrapped them about his neck. Locked in, willingly captured by, his tawny caramel gaze, she felt her heart soar, buoyed by an effervescent joy beyond anything she’d ever known. At the same time, she felt anchored by certainty. By the firm grasp of his hands, by the directness of his gaze. By their mutual determination, and the implied assurance that this was how they would always be — straightforward, direct.

And true.

She tipped up her face, brought her lips to his. “I’m glad you agree, too.”

They kissed. Impossible to tell who kissed whom, for they acted together. In concert. By mutual accord.

The caress deepened in the same way. Step by step, but who led and who followed constantly changed; both knew what they wanted and where they were going.

Both knew the way.

Into passion.

Into those moments when their hearts beat harder, heavier, when their breaths became increasingly ragged.

Into an exchange where senses blossomed and sensation became a means of communication, him to her, her to him, messages of love, of devotion and commitment, of worship and desire carried by increasingly heated kisses, by intense, lingering touches, by strokes and caresses that became ever more demanding, more commanding, ever more explicit.

Ever more arousing and needy.

Hungry and greedy.

Effortlessly together, hand in hand, they walked onto that plane where the world fell away and there was only them.

Their hearts, their needs, their wants and desires.

Their commitment.

Jeremy drew away, in one sweeping movement drew her nightgown off over her head; she helped, untangling her arms from the sleeves.

Taking another step back, the garment falling, forgotten, from his fingers, he let his gaze openly rove her body, naked and delectable as she balanced on the bed on her knees. The moonlight had strengthened, etching the scene in silver, bathing her limbs with a pearlescent wash that heightened his perception of her as a treasure beyond price.

“You are … indescribably beautiful.” His features were too passion-set to smile; he met her gaze, trusting she would see his feelings in his eyes, not caring in the least that she did. “You truly are beyond compare.”

He stepped closer, his gaze falling to the mounds of her breasts, to the rose quartz crystal that dangled between, suspended on its link-and-bead chain. To the tight, rosy peaks of her breasts, to the soft flush of desire that had already spread so evocatively beneath her skin.

His gaze swept lower, over the indentation of her waist, the flat plane of her belly, over the flare of her hips, down the taut length of her thighs, over the thatch of downy blond curls at their apex.

Drawing breath past the constriction banding his lungs, he forced his gaze upward; slowly drinking in the wondrous sight, he could almost hear the warrior within whisper:
Mine.

Eliza could barely breathe. The long burning perusal was nothing less than a stamp of possession, a brand seared into her senses, into her psyche. She felt it, knew it. The night air caressed her skin with cool fingers, yet still she burned — burned for him.

She didn’t tremble or shake but held out her arms; boldly, brazenly, a siren’s smile on her lips, with her hands she beckoned him nearer.

He saw, read the invitation, instinctively moved to respond, then reined himself back. Halting with their bodies mere inches apart, he reached out with one hand and twined his fingers with hers. Raising his gaze, meeting her eyes, he said, his voice pure gravel, “I suspect I should formally propose.”

Smile widening, she reached for his nape, drew him to her, and kissed him — hard, fast. Hungrily …

The lancing sensation of his coat brushing her already tightly furled, achingly sensitive nipples made her shudder. Forced to break the kiss, she gasped, “Later. Tomorrow.” Grasping his coat with both hands, she hauled the sides wide. “For tonight, for now …”

She didn’t bother finishing the sentence, deeming the urgent energy she focused on undressing him statement enough. She succeeded in wrestling the coat back over his shoulders; he obliged and shrugged free of it — and winced.

She saw. “Is your wound still painful?”

He grimaced. “More that it limits my movements — forget about it.”

“Huh!” Stepping from the bed, brushing his hands, more intent on roaming her naked curves than undressing himself, aside, she insisted on assisting him, unknotting and unwinding his cravat, unbuttoning his waistcoat, then his shirt. Pressing close, her hands sliding over his naked chest, she smiled into his eyes. “Consider me your valet for the night.”

The scoffing sound he made suggested that was utterly impossible, but he surrendered and followed her lead, toeing off his shoes, undoing the buttons at his waist.

And then, finally, he was as naked as she. Delighted, she wound her arms about his neck and went into his embrace with a bliss-filled sigh, one that hitched, quavered, under the sudden onslaught of the deliciously pleasurable, intensely erotic sensations that sparked as their bodies met, skin to skin, hardness to softness, and her senses swam.