Julia Justiss (18 page)

How could she have so misread him? What did he want from her? But in the midst of her degradation, one small ray of irony penetrated.

She may have repelled him, but her instincts were right.

He was different.

Down the hall she fled, scarcely knowing where she went, except that it must be somewhere dark and alone.

When she halted to catch her breath, she realized she’d ended up on the terrace outside the small study. Gulping in air, she listened for any sign of pursuit.

But by the time her breathing steadied, all she heard were small night noises, the scuffle of some animal in the bushes bordering the terrace, the distant hoot of an owl.

Well, she had indeed ruined everything, though not in the way she’d planned.

She couldn’t bear to face him now, a new wave of embarrassment flaming through her at the thought. She’d write him a note. Yes, a proper note, omitting any mention of this evening, thanking him again for his assistance, wishing for his speedy return to full health and bidding him goodbye.

She’d ride out tomorrow early, just in case her fierce need to be with him managed to triumph over her chagrin. He would be gone by the time she returned.

And she would never see him again.

Shivering now in her skimpy gown, Belle put her face in her hands and wept.

Lost in her anguish, at first she scarcely noticed the hand on her shoulder. “Please, Belle, don’t cry.”

It sounded like Carrington’s voice. But those soft, apologetic tones couldn’t be coming from the man who had just backed away from her in horror. When she lifted tear-blurred eyes to discover it was in fact the captain, another wave of misery—part heartache, part embarrassment, part longing—engulfed her.

“I’m so…sorry,” she gulped.

And then she was in Jack Carrington’s arms, his warmth shielding her from the night’s chill, one hand stroking her curls while the other held her close against his chest.

“No, sweeting, ’tis all my fault! Whatever you were trying to do to me in there, I never meant to hurt you.”

She could still feel the impressive length and hardness of his erection against her belly. And yet, his touch was as gentle as if he were cradling a child. Consoling, not condemning. Despite the obvious evidence of his desire, she could not, with all her experience, read into his embrace any indication of carnal intent.

Her mind flashed back a dozen years, to when she’d taken a fall from her horse. Just so had her father gathered her up in his arms, soothed her against his chest.

Yes, Captain Jack Carrington was different. Indeed, he appeared at this moment to be everything her schoolgirl fancy could have wished for, dreamed of. A man the last painful years of her life had convinced her did not exist.

A man she could never have, not even, it appeared, in lust.

The long day of agonizing and the agony of that dinner had shredded her already tightly wound nerves to the snapping point. Though she told herself she should pull free and walk away with whatever remnants of dignity she could muster, she found her legs too weak to move. Leaning her head against his chest in defeat, she let the sobs she could no longer contain overwhelm her.

At last she managed to halt the flood of tears and push weakly away from his chest.

He let her move back, still keeping her loosely in the circle of his arms.

“Belle, I don’t understand what happened tonight, and I want to understand it, rather desperately. I do know that we are both too…overwrought to discuss it now. Go to your bed, sweeting. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

He gave her a little push toward the terrace doors. “Leave now, while I can still make myself let you go.”

For a moment she stared up at him, but his face was too dim in the moonlight for her to read his expression. Then, with a whispered, “Thank you,” she gathered up her strength and her skirts and stumbled away.

H
EART POUNDING
and hands shaking as he battled the frenzy of frustrated lust still roaring in his veins, Jack commanded himself to remain motionless as Lady Belle hurried through the terrace doors into the house.

Into safety. After hovering all evening on the razor edge of losing control, he could at last relax.

In a manner of speaking. The outraged protest of his denied body, the almost painfully intense erection, would prevent any real relaxation for hours to come.

He uttered a harsh laugh. Were Aubrey to have witnessed Jack’s repulsing Lady Belle tonight, he would have dragged him off to Bedlam.

But whatever Belle had meant to do—and beyond driving him mad with frustrated desire, he still had no idea—she hadn’t truly wanted him to act on the invitation she had been conveying by every possible means.

He’d seek her out tomorrow. As awkward as that meeting might be, he had no intention of leaving Bellehaven until she explained what she’d been about tonight.

Why she’d masqueraded as a woman so different from the one he’d grown to know.

Why afterward she’d wept in his arms as if her heart were breaking.

With a sigh, Jack entered his room and headed straight for the brandy decanter. After pouring himself a hefty glass, he sat down and contemplated the deep ruby tones glinting through the sparkle of crystal in the candlelight. Unlike other nights when the fiery liquid had taken the edge off his suffering and helped him find peace, he knew it would be far into morning before his fully aroused senses calmed enough for him to sleep.

H
AVING GOTTEN
as little slumber as expected, Jack rose the next morning scarcely rested. Still, anticipation filled him at the prospect of seeing Belle—and dread, that the show she’d put on for him might have been her prologue to the final act of their relationship.

Hoping she would be as restless as he, Jack descended to the breakfast room early. Though to his disappointment, Lady Belle was not present when he entered, Watson quickly came forward to offer coffee and beefsteak.

He then surprised Jack by leaning close as he filled Jack’s cup, murmuring, “Thank ye for taking care of our lady last night. She…weren’t herself.”

Bemused, Jack propped an elbow against the mantel and savored the steamy brew. He ought to know by now that little escaped the notice of one’s servants.

He wondered if Watson had a better idea than he did of what had motivated his lady to not “be herself.” Though even as informally as this household was run, there was no way he could ask the butler such a question.

“Lady Belle be down in a minute, Jane said. Sun’s warm on the terrace. Should I bring you a tray there?”

The terrace where Jack had held her weeping in the moonlight. Where the hawthorn would shield them from prying eyes and overhearing ears while they breakfasted.

Jack sent Watson a grateful look. “Yes, thank you.”

Before Jack could speculate which Belle would come to breakfast—the seductress of last night or the reserved lady of the previous two weeks, the woman herself walked in.

Dressed, he noted at once, in the most unattractive gown he’d seen her wear yet—a long-sleeved, high-necked dull gray garment with no ornamentation whatsoever which did its utmost to mask Belle’s loveliness—though no garment made could truly do that, he thought with a wry smile.

Spying him by the fireplace, she halted, a look almost of panic flaring in her eyes.

He thanked God to the bottom of his soul that his instincts had been right and he’d been given the strength to resist his desire. For the lady poised for flight at the doorway was the woman he’d coaxed to reveal herself layer by layer these past two weeks—modest, sensitive, with a keen intelligence burning like a clear flame within her. A woman he’d grown to appreciate and treasure.

Beautiful. Desirable. But neither the cold, calculating courtesan men had described to him nor the practiced wanton she had appeared to be last night.

He was about to reassure her and beg her to stay when, with a sigh, she lifted her head to meet his gaze.

At that forlorn yet gallant gesture, something charged and intense shot through him, as if in that instant his feel
ings passed through a refiner’s fire and emerged in truer, purer form. Yes, he still craved answers to the mystery of her past, but who she had been, who she later became, no longer seemed important.

All he knew was the fact that
his
shy, diffident lady stood there, gamely trying to mask the discomfort her flaming cheeks broadcast so eloquently, made his chest swell with tenderness and a sheer, unalloyed joy more intense than any he’d previously experienced. He wanted to shout with laughter, whoop with excitement, seize her hands and swing her round and round until they were both dizzy.

And never, never leave her.

Thrusting out of mind the cruel truth that such a future could never be, he set down his cup and walked slowly toward her, as if approaching a skittish, half-wild colt. “Watson is bringing breakfast to the terrace. Will you share it with me?”

She was trembling, he noted, another wave of protective tenderness sweeping through him. He wanted desperately to pull her against his chest as he had last night, but was too afraid of frightening her off.

While he forced himself to stand back, she studied his face intently. Looking for what, he couldn’t imagine.

Mercifully, she seemed to have found it, for after a moment she exhaled a shaky breath and returned a tentative smile. “Y-yes, I should like that.”

He held out his arm. Warily she placed her hand on it, and he closed his eyes for an instant to savor the immediate sizzle of connection at her touch. Tucking her slender hand in his elbow, he led her out to the terrace.

A
LMOST DIZZY
with relief to find in the captain’s steady gaze no hint of the contemptuous censure his expression had held last night, Belle let him lead her away, intensely aware of the arm beneath her fingertips.

Despite his kindness on the terrace, she had not quite convinced herself he would not turn from her in distaste this morning. Since he hadn’t, however, she must now offer him some explanation for her odd behavior. Unfortunately, a night of tossing and turning hadn’t turned up any.

Except the truth.

She didn’t dare tell him that.

Watson hurried after them with a breakfast tray, and for the next few minutes, the mundane business of fixing cups and plates muted the initial awkwardness.

Once Watson withdrew, Belle took a deep breath. Best address the matter now, before she lost her courage.

“I must apologize again for last night. I didn’t mean to make you…uncomfortable.” And although she knew she shouldn’t, she couldn’t help adding, color rising in her face, “I hope I’ve not given you a…a disgust of me.”

“You could never do that!” he exclaimed, easing somewhat the nauseating churn of emotions in her breast.

She managed a smile. “Having made it quite obvious you were not…interested, I promise I’ll not throw myself at you again.”

“Not interested?” he echoed and uttered a strangled laugh. “No man breathing could help but want a woman as attractive as you! A lady who, for me, is even more compelling since I’ve discovered her mind to be as lovely as
her person, her accomplishments as impressive as the astonishing beauty of her face.”

She shook her head, not understanding. “But if you wanted me, and I was offering you—”

“A whore’s tricks! I thought we meant more to each other than a mindless exchange of passion. Especially since it appears I was the only one feeling the passion. I have my pride, too, Belle. I refuse to be reduced to simply a…a toy, for you to practice your wiles upon.”

He thought she had been
using
him, she realized incredulously. Trying to manipulate him—as Bellingham had manipulated her all those years? “I never meant it like that!” she gasped, horrified.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I know you didn’t. But, Belle, I don’t want you to offer yourself out of some misplaced sense of gratitude. Much as I yearn for you, I don’t want you to kiss me with practiced art or do any of the surely wonderful things you could do to bring me to ecstasy—while all you do is go through the motions. I would have shot myself as an idiot for turning down what you offered, but for the fact that, despite the most arousing show of seduction I’ve ever had practiced on me—” his voice softened and he gently drew one finger across her cheek, as if wiping away a tear “—other evidence seemed to indicate that seduction wasn’t really what you wished.”

He’d wanted her, but had not taken her because he sensed
she
had not really wanted
him?
Deep in her chest, she could almost feel the last of the barriers she’d erected
to resist him crumbling. Her breath caught in her throat and she fought back the burn of tears.

“Belle,” he continued quietly, “when—if—I ever touch you, I want you to desire me as I much as I desire you. I’m willing to wait until you are ready to share with me all the joy and wonder of it.”

Joy? Wonder? She shook her head. After the last six and a half years, she could probably compile a dictionary of terms describing the joining of man and woman, but those two words wouldn’t be in it.

Somehow it seemed both sweet and achingly sad that he might think otherwise. “If that is what you truly want, I’m afraid you would wait forever.”

“Forever?” He studied her for a long moment. “Do you mean to tell me,” he said at last, “that in all the time you were with him, Bellingham never gave you pleasure?”

The old anger boiled up and a harsh laugh escaped before she could stop it. How many treacheries and lies had been perpetrated against her for the sake of a man’s enjoyment? “Pleasure?” she spat back. “Pleasure is something a man takes from a woman’s body, and all he gives back is the seed he spills upon her sheets.”

However accurate that assessment, she instantly regretted giving voice to it in such crude terms. “Forgive me,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t have…”

He was shaking his head, on his face an expression that looked like…amazement? “My poor Belle,” he murmured, “that explains so many things. Bellingham should have been shot.”

Before she could puzzle out what he meant by that, he
continued, “Even so, if you tried to entice me out of gratitude, why the last-minute regrets? Why did you weep into my kiss, Belle? What did you really want?”

She found it impossible to look away from his gaze.
I wanted to prove you as unworthy as every other man, so I could rip you out of my heart and send you away—before I hung on with both fists and begged you never to leave.

Saying that was unthinkable, but before she could find something plausible, he said, “To satiate me completely so I’d have no strength to resist your sending me away?”

He couldn’t possibly guess the whole truth, but hearing him voice that much of it rattled her into blurting, “Y-yes.”

Now that her affirmation couldn’t be unspoken, she fought back the urge to explain, to try to make him understand. Saying more would just make matters worse.

For a long moment they stared at each other in silence. “Do you want me to leave?” he asked at last.

She tried to look away, but his unyielding gaze held hers captive. What did she want? Or rather, what should she want? “I—Yes! No! Oh, I don’t know!”

He closed his eyes and muttered something that sounded like “Thank God.” “’Tis what I should want, too. For us to part now, before parting becomes any more difficult.”

A slowly dawning sense of wonder filled her chest. “So…you feel it, too, this…connection between us?”

He nodded with a sigh. “And I’ve no more notion of what to do about it than you. Right now I’d like nothing
better than to stay here forever, but we both know that can’t happen. I should do us a favor and leave right now, this morning. But unless you order me to go…Belle, I don’t think I can make myself. Could you be wise for us, sweeting? Ask me to leave, Belle. Please.”

She tried to make her lips form the words. But the exultation swelling in her heart strangled her voice and refused to let her utter the words.

He cares for you, as you do for him! her heart exulted. This amazing, wonderful, exceptional man who prizes your intellect and respects—
respects
—you, can be yours for a few more days—more than you’ll have the rest of your life if you send him away now. And the pain of his leaving cannot be any more intense then than it would be today.

Instead of the prudent dismissal he’d asked for, she found herself saying, “Can you stay just a bit longer? I…I should be more comfortable if you were here to supervise the guards, if trouble develops. And I would worry less about your traveling if you were well enough to ride.”

The excuses were thin and both of them knew it.

He looked away. She could feel the tension coiled in him as she waited, barely breathing, knowing it would be better if he refused, desperately hoping he would accept.

At last he looked up. “All right, Belle. ’Tis madness, but I’ll stay another week. And then I must—”