Love Not a Rebel (45 page)

“If I’ll excuse you? Madame, do you think that I intend
to engage in some drawing-room conversation. No, my love, that is the point here. I am done with excusing you!” he thundered out vengefully. His hands were upon her shoulders, wrenching her up to face him. His fingers lay upon her naked flesh, biting and cruel, and he drew her hard against him. Fire burned brightly within his eyes as they tore into hers. “I knew from the beginning that you followed the Crown, and I even knew that you were Dunmore’s spy, and that didn’t matter to me, lady. When we married I had you watched and followed, not so that you could not give away the information you had been given, but because I feared for your safety.”

Her face went pale. He nearly ceased in his tirade. He could not. He had missed her too long. And she had played him false when he had believed that if not her love, her loyalty to the very house she called home would have kept her true. He was too shaken to cease. Too shaken to take his hands from her. He clenched her shoulders even more tightly. “My God, lady, if there is an excuse, tell it to me now!”

“I didn’t do it!”

“You lie!”

“I do not!”

She brought her fists up between them to beat against him, but he swung her around and she stumbled, falling to her knees before him. She cast her hair back again, fighting tears. There had been so many times when she had deserved his wrath! She had fought him and hated him at every turn, but not now. Now she was in love with him, and, innocent, she had no defense.

“There is nothing that I can say!” she cried out to him. “Cast me before your courts, hang me for a traitor if you will, but by God, leave me be—”

“Leave you be!” He hunched down before her. His ruffled shirt was torn and powder smudged, his waistcoat and frock coat both showed signs of the day’s wear. “I am called back from service in New York because my wife is planning my very doom! Handing my very property to the enemy! My God, you might very well have set fire to the house with your very own hand!”

“No!”

“You might have sailed the ship!”

She couldn’t believe that there seemed to be no mercy, no reason in him at all. And still, she was desperate to make him understand. “I did not fire the house! Eric, I pleaded that they not burn the manor. I said that I would go if only—”

“Stop it!” he hissed, and his hand lashed out in a fury, stopping just short of her cheek. “You did what?”

“I said that I would go along willingly if they did not burn the house! And it didn’t burn, Eric! It—”

“Bitch!” He swore to her, low and trembling. “You went with him willingly! Into Tarryton’s arms! You forget how we met, my lady wife!” he charged her scathingly. “That you would need bargain with Robert Tarryton! The army lies languishing and I need run to capture my own wife, the Brit’s courtesan!”

“How dare you!” she cried, near tears of anguish and fury. She could not fight. Not even the truth stood in her defense. Rising, she lashed out at him. The fight had been simmering and brewing between the two of them, and he was glad of it. He seized her arm and dragged her up to him. In panic she struggled against him. She had never seen this dark rage take hold of him, and it terrified her. “Let me go! Eric, you’re hurting me, let go of me, Eric!”

He flung her hard on the elegant bed and fell atop of her, his thumbs and forefingers caressing her temples as he stared down at her.

“I’ve wondered. I’ve lain awake nights, and I’ve wondered if you were here, alone, in this bed. I agonized over leaving you so, yet I believed that you had vowed yourself into this marriage and that you would honor the promise sworn between us. I’ve faced bullets and steel time and again, and never have I sweat as I did nights, lady, torturing myself with visions of you as I have found you this night, sweet and fragrant from the bath, your flesh like alabaster, your heart beating that pulse to your veins. I’ve tried not to think that Tarryton might find his way to you, that his hands might close over your breasts, as mine do now.”

“I never betrayed you with any man!” she cried out, and she felt as if her teeth chattered harshly within her mouth. “I cannot bear Robert now! You know that—”

“I do not know that. I know that you walked out of this house with him this morning—willingly.”

“The servants—”

“The servants would not lie.”

“But I …”

“You what, milady?” he asked scornfully.

The words fled from her; she could not whisper them. I love you. They echoed within her skull, but she could not say them. They came too late, and they would not be believed.

“I did not do this!” she cried, and his lip curled in disbelief.

“I wanted to kill Tarryton—and you,” he told her. “From the time that I was summoned here, I felt an almost primal desire to draw torment and blood.”

“Eric—”

“Fear not, milady. I do not intend to go so far.”

“Eric, please—”

“Please what?”

“Let me up!”

He hated her at that moment, she was certain. Almost as much as she hated him for the disbelief and mockery in his eyes. And still he lay against her bare flesh, pinning her against the bed that they shared as man and wife. Love and hate … the emotions were close indeed. Though she thought she despised him desperately and burned to be free of him, she was filled by a greater need, to feel him close again, his hands and lips upon her, caressing, demanding.

“You’re forgetting that you’re my wife,” he reminded her. “And that I am a soldier, returned from the front.”

“I am forgetting nothing! We are bitter enemies, milord, and no matter how I try, you refuse to believe me.”

“You speak of war again. You chose to fight this particular battle. Well, I won, madame. You lost. And you are my wife.”

“Your despised wife! Eric, for the love of God—”

“For the love of God, lady, no. I will not free you this night. If it is war, madame, then know the truth of it. If we shall win this fight, then I am a hero. If the king is victorious, then I am a traitor indeed. But this night, lady, I am the conqueror, and the rewards of conquest are as old as time.”

Anguish and tempest struck her anew. She could not surrender, not to his touch, not even to the ardent fever that swept about them both like a relentless tide. She had not seen him in so long. It had been more than two months. Two months in which she had done her best to be a Cameron wife, to cherish and nurture the land and the hall, to stand fast against any enemy. And then …

After everything, the British ships had appeared that morning and Robert had come to her bedchamber. And now everything that she had ever feared in Eric had been unleashed. He hated her with a passion, she could feel it in his touch each time his fingers brushed her or curled around her. His temper was on a taut string, barely held from total explosion.

But not even the bitter fire of his anger nor his absolute mockery could still the things he evoked in her when he came too close. Dear God! That she could go back to a time when she had despised him! But that time was gone. And now she longed to forget this day, this horrid, horrid day. She longed to embrace him. She hadn’t tasted in so long the sweetness and decadence of once-forbidden pleasures, felt his lips, his hands upon her. But she could not give to him now. Not when she knew so little of his mind, when his fury was so sharp, so blinding.

She parted her lips to speak, but she did not. She saw the wrath of his gaze and fell silent, unable to read his thoughts.

They were easy to fathom, he could have told her. But he hadn’t told her what others dreams had kept him awake at night. Dreams of her, as he saw her now. Her eyes so green, shadowed and shaded by the rich sweep of her lashes as they fell over the emerald orbs, fluttering open again. Even now her hair dried in tendrils both deep,
dark sable and flaming red, depending how the locks curled or waved or lay upon her flesh.

He moved his hand to her cheeks, tracing the excellence of her features, the high set of her bones, the slight heart shape of the face, accented by the widow’s peak at her temple and the sweeping richness of her hair. Her lips were beautifully shaped, naturally rose, the lower lip full and the curve of the whole evocatively sensual. At rest she was exquisite, as a statue was exquisite. Her flesh was like marble in its perfection, from the slope of her shoulders and rise of her breasts to the shapely curves of her hips and calves. In motion she was more than beautiful, for she was energy and tension and passion, and her eyes were haunted with what emotion ruled her thoughts, always exciting, always eliciting his own passion, be it yearning need or a cyclone of fury.

And now … now her lips lay parted beneath his. Her breasts rose and fell with each whisper of her breath, and the length of her perfection lay beneath him. Theirs had never been a soft or quiet relationship, yet he had never thought it would come to this. He knew he would take her that night by any force, rather than see tomorrow come without the memory of the night.

His mouth came closer. Their eyes met at just a breath of space.

“No! We will not—do this!” Amanda managed to protest. “Not like this! Not when you do not love me!”

“Love, madame? When did that enter into your priorities? Certainly not when you married me. Not when you discovered maps within my library to give your father. Not when you betrayed this very house.”

“But I did not! Oh, Eric, you fool! Listen to me! Perhaps I am guilty of giving away past … secrets. You don’t understand! They held Damien—”

“What?” he demanded sharply.

She swallowed. “My father had Damien. He always threatened me with Damien. First he swore that he would have him arrested and hanged. And then he did have him, Eric. The horse! Remember at the governor’s palace on New Year’s? Damien’s horse died, and I knew that Father
wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to a man. And then they actually held Damien! They were threatening me—”

“I see. But Damien has been freed for some time now, milady.”

“And that is what I am telling you! There is another spy out there, and it isn’t me!”

He smiled. “A pretty tale,” he told her.

“Eric, please—”

“Amanda, I do not please, milady! But before God, I swear it! I have missed you.”

“Oh!” she cried, then gasped and swore in fury, surging against him to escape him, feeling him ever more pressed against her body. Little was hid by the tightness of his breeches. Her eyes widened as she felt the strength of him. She shuddered violently, hating him and hating herself all the more because she did not care about pride or reason, only that he held her, even if it was all a lie.

“We cannot!”

“But you are my wife.”

“Who betrayed you, so you say.”

“It does not matter. Not now. Not tonight.”

“No! Eric!” She was very close to tears. “Not after today. My God, let me up!” She surged against him anew, trying to dislodge him, to free herself by any means. Darkness seemed to surround her in a rise of mist like the steam of a summer’s sun. She felt his hardness against her again, pulsing, vivid, and it seemed as if a thousand pagan drums began to beat within her heart and core and blood. She fought him, and she fought herself, but he held her firm, his eyes ever upon her until she blushed radiantly even as she choked and swore and struggled. “Eric! No!”

He smiled, and his gaze was taunting, provocative. “Ah … Mandy! Don’t you seek forgiveness?”

She went very still and moistened her lips.

“What?” She gasped.

“Perhaps I will.”

She watched him for a moment, but she didn’t trust him. He leaned against her, imprisoning her hands. “You cast yourself upon Tarryton, why not me? We even have the sanctity of marriage upon us, my love.”

“I never cast myself upon Tarryton!” she swore. She tried to kick him. He laughed, for his weight was well upon her, and he was in no danger. Fury filled her. “You want me to beg your forgiveness in this manner!”

“It is a way to start,” he commented dryly. But his eyes were silver and blue flame and a vein ticked rampantly against his throat. She caught her breath, but then her heart fell again and she defied.

“Then you would call me a whore!” she retorted. “Giving in for—for what I might get in turn.”

“The words are yours,” he said.

“Oh! Never! Eric—”

“Shh! The words do not matter, truth does not matter, nay, not even love! You are my wife, and I have been away too long, and, lady, this thing between us is ever fierce, and I will not be denied.”

His lips pressed against hers with searing hunger, stealing away her words. She tried to twist her head, but his hands were powerful upon her head, holding her still to his leisure. She felt the heady fullness of his tongue as he played against the barriers of her lips and teeth and filled her mouth, seeking and giving, bringing a rush of heat to rise within her. She tried to push against him, but he caught her hands, and laced his fingers with hers, pinning them to her sides. She tossed and turned and writhed, and felt the fires burning ever more brightly, more fervently about her. She sank into the heat, into the desperate rise of passion, where thought knew no place and the heart and hunger ruled all.

She loved him. Pride be damned, for it was lost, cast along with dignity upon the shores of emotion, for come what may, in truth she could not deny him, nor herself.

Her hand was free. He stroked her open palm with his fingers, and then his hands moved over her, trembling, and yet with sureness and relentless hunger. He cupped her breast, and explored her hip, and his lips left her mouth to trail against her throat and breasts. She gasped with the startling pleasure as he took the rosebud of one crest within his mouth, teasing with his teeth and bathing it again and again with the lavish sweep of his tongue. Her
hands were upon him, she realized. Her fingers fell upon his shoulders, and she felt the ripple of his muscle beneath the fabric of his uniform. She threaded her fingers into his dark hair and marveled at the texture of it. And still he moved against her.

“Give to me, my wife, my love!” His whispers coursed her ears and the heat of them filled her with heightened excitement. “Fill me with your beauty, with the magic of the night.…”