My Darling Caroline (19 page)

He inhaled deeply, watching her closely, lying on his side across the foot of the bed.

“You are so unique,” he said at last, lifting her foot to massage her toes. “A perfect picture of unmatched intelligence, sensual beauty, and keen philosophic thought.”

That made her pulse race. With the back of her hand, she wiped stray hair from her forehead. “Have you always talked so romantically to your ladies, Brent?”

He frowned. “Romantic to my ladies?”

She snickered and wiggled her toes in his fingers. “All the ladies you’ve bedded before me.”

He stared at her blankly, then shook his head incredulously. “Only you would mention such a thing at a time like this.”

Extreme curiosity overcame her. “Well?”

“Well what?”

She could see he was amused, and with frustration filling her in a rush, she knew he planned to tease her, avoiding the issue, until she embarrassed herself by begging for details.

She exhaled loudly, deciding to play his ridiculous game by refusing to give him the satisfaction. “Did you speak to them in French?”

“No.”

She blinked. “No?”

“No.”

“Not even the Frenchwoman who gave you a child?”

He watched her for a moment, then leaned over to kiss the bottom of her foot.

“That tickles,” she said through a giggle.

He raised his head and said richly, “You like this, don’t you?”

She pulled her foot from his grasp. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“What question was that?”

She rolled her eyes and slammed the backs of her hands on the bed. “I’m sure you know what I’m asking, Brent.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why?’” she fairly blurted.

“Why do you want to know?” His gaze became intense. “Do you care that much about me and my past?”

“Of course I care,” she admitted quietly, timidly, crossing her arms over her chest. He grinned in satisfaction, and she dropped her gaze. After a moment of silence, and without glancing up, she softly asked, “You’d never consider letting me leave, would you?”

“Leave to where?”

She shrugged. “Anywhere.”

He took her other foot and began the same circular motions with the pad of his thumb. “If you left me for more than a week, Caroline, I think I’d be crushed.”

“Crushed?” That answer pleased her enormously.

“Are you planning a holiday away from me already?”

She smiled coyly. “No.” Then she looked from his fervent stare down to her nails with apparent newfound interest. “But I’ll take a holiday from your bed if you continue to avoid my questions.”

Suddenly he grabbed her leg and pulled her down to his level, beside him, grasping her around the waist and practically flinging her up to lie on top of him.

With playful exaggeration, she pushed her hair from her face to better view his brilliant, greenish-brown eyes, now crinkled once more in mild humor.

“I adore the way you feel on top of me, Caroline,” he whispered through a groan. “You’re warm and soft and fit me perfectly, making me hard and desperate to be inside of you again.”

Her breath quickened from the comment, stirring sensations of recklessness and sensuality she’d never felt before. “Goodness, my lord, hard and desperate? That’s not very romantic.”

He gave her a rakish grin, then holding her against him, rolled them both over on the bed so she lay beneath him. “Unromantic, maybe, but directly to the point, my sweet wife.”

She laughed quietly and said, “I’m sure ‘hard and desperate’ sounds romantic in French.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Speak to me in French,” she quietly demanded after a moment of silence.

He shook his head.

“Yes.”

“No.”

She scrutinized every inch of his face as she ran her fingers through his hair. “You can’t remember any romantic words?”

“I can remember plenty,” he boasted.

She giggled and squirmed beneath him, and with that he nuzzled her neck. “Please, Brent?”

He brushed kisses along her neck and jaw as he pulled his head up slightly, moving to his side just enough to take his weight from her.

“English is my mother tongue, Caroline. French was my job.”

“But—”

He touched her mouth, his expression becoming contemplative. “The words are the same—they only sound prettier because they’re different and you don’t understand what they mean. It’s the meaning that matters.” He traced a pattern along her lips with his fingertips, then moved his hand to stroke her cheek.

Bravely she prodded for what she truly wanted to hear. “So you never spoke French to the other ladies you bedded?”

He looked down at her strangely, then slowly shook his head in disbelief. “For as long as I live, I’m sure I’ll never understand females.” She did nothing but stare innocently into his eyes, and after a moment of apparent indecision, he murmured, “You really care to know?”

She nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck to keep him from escape if he chose to attempt one.

He sighed and kissed the tip of her nose. “I spoke French to Rosalyn’s mother because it’s the only language she knows. I did not, however, speak to her while we had sex because we had nothing much to say before, during, or after.” He cupped her cheek with his palm. “I don’t think I ever spent more than fifteen minutes with her in bed each time, and since you’re so unbelievably curious, my darling Caroline, let me inform you that all the other ladies I’ve bedded have added up to only two.”

She looked at him stupidly. “Only two what?”

He grinned sheepishly and lowered his voice. “Only two other ladies.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “But you’re a man.”

That made him laugh. “What does that have to do with it?”

She closed her arms even tighter around his neck and ran her fingers through his hair. “Nothing, I suppose, except men seem to find bedding women over and over so relevant to their masculinity. After tonight I suppose I understand the pleasure, which leads me to wonder how a man your age, unmarried, could keep himself from a lady’s bed.”

He lifted his leg over hers, holding her down with his thigh. “My education and work were very important to me, demanding most of my attention for several years, Caroline. Sometimes I felt lonely, even undesirable, but I had other things to do to occupy my time, and truthfully, women didn’t hold that much significance in my life. Then in France I met Rosalyn’s mother, and she satisfied my physical needs when I needed her to do so.”

“That sounds so positively arrogant,” she said with a smile, brushing a stray lock of hair from his cheek. “What about the other two ladies?”

He grinned. “What about them?”

She looked into his eyes. “Who were they?”

He reached down to cup her breast, causing a sudden flutter in her stomach. She, however, would not be undone.

“Who were they?” she asked again slowly, more firmly.

He gently flicked his thumb over her nipple, watching her succumb to his touch, as he softly replied, “The first was the daughter of one of my mother’s chambermaids.”

She gaped at him, and that made him grin again.

“She was nineteen, I was seventeen, and before I really knew what was happening, she seduced me in the stables one rainy afternoon. The whole affair was quite awkward, but she knew what she was doing. We managed it eight times in two days without getting caught, then she left the estate to pursue…other gallant men, I suppose. I haven’t seen her since.”

Loudly, incredulously, she said, “Eight times? You did it eight times in two days?”

“I was seventeen years old, Caroline,” he explained in defense, as if that explained everything.

Her eyes remained wide with keen interest. “Could you do it that many times now?”

Slowly he started running his toes up and down her leg. “I doubt it but I’d be happy to try, little one.”

Her mind suddenly turned to something more pertinent to their lives at the moment. “And what if you got her pregnant?”

“I didn’t.”

“How do you know?”

He gently squeezed her nipple. “Because if I had, her mother would have demanded compensation from my family, and I would have had to leave the country to escape my mother’s wrath.”

That statement saddened her tremendously, and she leaned up to kiss him fully. He responded in kind by wrapping his arms completely around her and holding her tightly until she released him.

“Who was the third?” she whispered against his mouth.

Without hesitation, he murmured, “The third was you.”

Caroline grinned, satiated, cupping his face. “So you really never bedded the beautiful Pauline Sinclair?”

Quickly and unexpectedly, he climbed completely on top of her, twisting her hair around his fingers to firmly brace her head in his palms.

“Who told you she was beautiful?” he demanded, grinning pompously.

Since she could think of nothing to say except the truth, she finally mumbled, “Nedda…mentioned it.”

He laughed softly, amazed. “You asked my housekeeper about the women in my past?”

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Of course not.” Then, as he didn’t look the least bit convinced, she confessed what he already knew. “I just wondered why you didn’t marry her since, according to Nedda, she was the epitome of social grace and loveliness.”

His features softened. “I didn’t want to after I found her having sex in her stables with another man.” He laughed again mildly. “Besides the bedroom, that seems to be the place for first couplings.”

She stared at him, shocked. “You
found
her like that?”

“With her legs spread wide and her skirt above her waist.”

Caroline felt a flood of sympathy wash over her, trying to imagine how he must have felt to see the woman he intended to marry engaged so indecently with another.

“Nedda told me she didn’t want to marry you because of Rosalyn,” she quietly confessed.

He lightly caressed her cheek with his knuckles. “I let others believe she didn’t want me because that was the honorable thing to do. It wasn’t my place to spread the news to society and ruin her life. She was managing to do it nicely all by herself.”

Caroline cupped his cheeks with her hands, holding him firmly in front of her face. “I’ve never known a person I’ve admired more than you, Brent,” she whispered with absolute adoration and wonder. “I’m so proud to be your wife.”

The honesty she conveyed in her tone and expression seemed to daze him for a moment as she watched confusion, then gentleness cross his brow. Then he lowered his mouth and kissed her deeply, fully, wrapping his arms around her as if they were one.

“I want to make love to you again, Caroline,” he urged softly, his voice thick with emotion.

“I want you to,” she whispered in complete surrender, clinging to him tightly, moving her hand to glide her fingertips along his spine, kissing his face and jaw in smooth, gentle touches. After hearing him groan and feeling his growing need rubbing against her hips, she quietly amended, “But I do have one condition in allowing you the generous use of my body.”

He slowly raised his head to look at her smugly. “I’m truly frightened to ask what that might be.”

Her face broke out into a smile again. “How did you acquire a green house?”

He relaxed, his eyes flashing with knowing sensitivity. “It was my mother’s.”

“Your mother was a botanist?” she asked, surprised.

“She tried to be.” He covered her breast with his palm. “She never had your talent or commitment, though.”

Her gaze dropped to his chest, her heart swelling with plea sure from that statement.

“Can I keep it?” she fairly begged, knowing she sounded timid and unsure, and even in her boldness unable to look him in the eye with the question.

Suddenly, as if in answer, he moved down and covered her nipple with his mouth, rotating his tongue with expertise, sucking and kissing and making her weak. She spread her legs for his probing hand and succumbed to the need.

Words were no longer necessary.

He woke with a start, sitting abruptly, heart pounding, body bathed in sweat. His eyes tried to adjust to the darkness surrounding him as his mind worked to lift the cloud of confusion, to calm the rush of fear that enveloped him.

It was night, the dead of night since no fire burned, and as he wiped a shaking hand over his head, the disorientation slowly gave way to remembrance.

To his side lay his wife, sleeping peacefully. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the room lighted only from soft moonglow, he turned to her, watching her, his body calming, his tense muscles relaxing as he breathed deeply and purposefully.

Her beautiful hair flowed in waves across the pillow, eyes shut firmly in deep slumber as she faced him. One bare breast peeked out from the sheet, nipple hardened from the chill in the room, and without thought he reached down and covered her gently with the blankets, which in turn caused her to stir and swiftly turn onto her stomach, her arms pushed up under her pillow.

His chest tightened as he thought about her, about the night before, her loving him with such passion and beauty, giving not only her body but her soul to him as well. And because of their growing closeness, the dream filled him with disparity and urgency. With Caroline in his life, becoming everything to him, his greatest fears were ahead, disguised in the unknown.

Philip knew he was alive somewhere. That was the dream, so vivid and terrifying.

Philip was coming—he could feel it in the air, in the darkness—and his sweet, beautiful wife would be the killer’s target. Rosalyn was Christine’s child, and that alone would keep her safe. He knew of her already and had so for years. But Caroline was English. She belonged to him. And that knowledge, if he knew of it, would eat at the Frenchman. Until he saw Philip dead with his eyes, he could never be sure, and the nightmares would never end.

He looked back to her, moonlight filtering through the window to strike the softness of her back, and suddenly he felt the incredible urge to hold her. He lowered his body onto the bed again, covered both of them with the quilt, and snuggled against her warmth. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to him, holding her tightly as he grazed his palm along her arm.